A SYSfSM OF 

MORAL PHILOSOPHY, 



R. P, P. H M CBICAOO. 




LIBRARY OF CONGRESS. 



UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 



The Ethics of Spiritualism ; 



A SYSTEM OF 



Moral Philosophy 



FOUNDED ON EVOLUTION AND THE CONTINUITY OF 
MAN'S EXISTENCE BEYOND THE GRAVE. 



BY HUDSON TUTTLE, 

Author of "Arcana of Nature" u Antiquity of Man" "Career 

of the God-Idea in History, iu * Career of Religious 

ideas" "Arcana of Spiritualism" Etc. 



i/< 






The Old. — Whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye 
even so to them. 

The New.— Do all for others. 




CHICAGO: 
PUBLISHED by the religio- philosophical publishing house. 

1878. 






Copyright by Hudson Tuttle, 1878. 



TO 



ttyttt* $MW$* #♦ #» 



INTRODUCTION 



Receiving the doctrine of a future life as a demon- 
strated fact, and that the future state is a direct continuance 
of the present, changed only by environing conditions, 
what is the morality necessarily flowing from such accep- 
tance, and wbat are its effects on the conduct of life? We 
are forced to examine this subject because we are told that 
Spiritualism is immoral in its teachings, and leads to a de- 
praved life. Such an opinion may be honestly entertained 
by those who believe in and revere the old, and regard the 
new with jealous eye. They who have been taught from 
infancy that their hope of future happiness depends on 
the reception of certain dogmas, even if their reason rebel, 
cannot throw aside the shackles of superstition, of educa- 
tion and old time customs. What they have regarded as 
necessary incentives for right doing, they cannot be con- 
vinced are useless, and that man can walk the road of 
righteousness single handed and alone. They cannot be- 
lieve such an one can be trusted with himself, and are cer- 
tain evil and corruption will flow from unfettered human 
nature. They believe immortality is a gift bestowed by 
God, as a reward for the acceptance of certain doctrines, 
and not inherent in the constitution of man. 

In the beginning, we make the broad statement that every 
belief, however ancient, which is not true, is baleful in its 
influence, and the time for the presentation of a new truth 
to the world, is the moment it receives birth in the mind of 
a thinker. If man is immortal, he is such by virtue of his 
being human, and no fiat of any external power can annul 
his birthright. The caterpillar is a prophesy of the but- 
terfly. As well might we say that the butterfly state is a 
gift bestowed on favored caterpillers for believing the 
theories of ancient caterpillars, as that immortality is 
bestowed on certain men because they accept certain an- 
cient doctrines. The butterfly arises from the worm by 



VI INTRODUCTION. 

laws of growth, and the change of the latter to the former 
is inevitable. So the spirit of man must be an outgrowth 
of laws, and predetermined by his physical constitution. 
We are immortal, and cannot blot out our immortality — 
whether in a heaven of happiness or a hell of misery, we 
cannot escape the fiat of .endless living. The suicide vainly 
attempts escape on the earth side of life, to be met on the 
other side of the narrow grave by Eternity. Escape, there 
is none. We live, and the spark of life which is ours is 
more enduring than the adamantine mountain— than the 
stars of space — and shall blocm in youthful verdure when 
their fires expire and the sun-ashes are drawn like mist to 
be rekindled at the central forges of the system. 

Every human being, as an immortal spirit, stands *or- 
ever in the center of the universe. From the abysmal be- 
ginning up to the present moment all the laws and forces 
of nature have labored to give him birth. Through all the 
ages of the future will they labor to sustain and develop 
his possibilities. The one auxiliary is his own efforts; 
eventually all gain must come through the exertion of the 
individual. 

A correct system of morals must be founded, not on any 
supposed revelation or ancient form of faith, but on the 
constitution of man. It must be the result of the careful 
study of his physical, mental and spiritual nature. No 
theory, however long received as infallible ; no revelation, 
however sacred, has the least weight against the demon- 
strated conclusions of impartial thought. By the simple 
enunciation of science that man is a creature of evolution, 
that he has come up out of the night of the past, step by 
step, until he has acquired his present stature, by denying 
primitive perfection and fall therefrom, revolutionizes all 
our methods of thought in regard to his position, duties 
and obligations. Instead of a distinct creation, amenable 
to superior powers, he is an integral factor of the world, 
and has no escape from its laws. As the hand, so exquis- 
itely perfect in man, so soft and beautiful, so nicely adapted 
for executing the plans of intelligence, is shadowed in the 
rod-like limb of the proteus, the flipper of the whale, and 
the forefoot of the quadruped, so is his intellect prophesied 
in the dim and unarticulated thoughts of the same beings. 
His mental superiority is no greater than his physical. 
The hand that makes the engine is equal to the mind that 



INTRODUCTION. VII 

conceives and plans the engine. Mentally and physically 
man is a creature of growth, and hence he is allied to the 
world of matter and the world of thought Through him 
the animal leaps the abyss between the physical and the 
spiritual. Human history is a bridge spanning interminable 
marshlands, its further end reaching towards the brutal, its 
unfinished arches illumined by the sun flooding down from 
the spiritual firmament. 

Along this causeway have been waged the mighty battles 
of the ages, fought over again in the life of every indi- 
vidual. It is the war between the animal side of man's 
nature and the spiritual. As the race has unfolded, gath- 
ering higher and clearer perceptions of right, truth and 
justice, age after age, the gain has been on the side of the 
spiiitual. As in the individual, the brute forces of the de- 
sires have been co-ordinated with the moral and spiritual 
perceptions. 

Because of this evolution, is there conflict between the 
two sides of man's nature. Because he is an animal physi- 
cally, is there war between his physical and his 
spiritual tendencies. To harmonize this apparent anom- 
aly, by which the aspirations of an angel are linked 
with the passions of a devil, has been the primary object 
of all systems of theology. The existence of these spiritual 
aspirations indicated the innate purity of the spirit and its 
primal perfection. That it was, in fact, so prone to fly to 
the ungoverned selfishness and lust of brutes, indicated a 
fallen and depraved state. 

The dogmas growing out of this erroneous view were 
also dependent on equally false ideas of God. A perfect, 
infinite and good God, would not create an imperfect man. 
His creation would be in his own image. Man was far from 
perfect. His imperfection was the result of sin and wicked 
ness. As his Creator does not wish him to sin, he sins from 
choice. His free agency shifts the burden of responsi- 
bility from God to himself. Created perfect, he has sinned 
by choice, and became depraved through and by means of 
his own wickedness. He has corrupted himself. To 
escape the infinite consequences, he must have faith in a 
verbal revelation and a certain scheme of redemption. 
Immortality is not the result of immutable laws, and has 
no relation to the constitution of things. Men reared in 
this belief, when they cast it aside are often unbalanced. 



VIII INTRODUCTION. 

The passions held by such faith in obeyance, are ungov- 
erned when it is withdrawn, as the higher faculties which 
should control are untried or inactive. It is said they 
are examples of the bad influence of the new and want of 
faith in the old doctrines. Rather are they examples 
of the blighting effects of the old. Instead of cultivating 
the spiritual side, that it might control the animal instincts, 
it has foisted a blind faith in its place. It has made beiief 
of more consequence than harmonious development. This 
has been the theological solution of the problem of man's 
redemption. It has been made by honest men, who have 
thought profoundly and reasoned logically from their 
data. But granting the theory of evolution, of man's de- 
velopment from the world of brute forces, this solution is 
entirely false. Man having never fallen, needs no redemp- 
tion. The problem assumes a new form. How shall the 
animal aid spiritual be harmonized ? In the outset, we 
must regard matter and spirit as equally sacred. We cannot 
vent our spleen, as the ascetics of old, against the inherent 
sinfulness of matter, and think to gain heaven by crueify- 
ing the flesh. As long as we are inhabitants of this sphere, 
our physical being is essential, and the laws and conditions 
of its development are as pure and holy as those of the 
spirit. It is not by crushing the instincts under the iron 
heel of faith, but in their proper and legitimate direction 
by dominant intellectual and moral faculties, that per- 
fection is to be sought. The accomplishment of this ob- 
ject is the real purpose of life; it has not only a relation 
for time but for eternity. 

The golden messengers from that land beyond the grave, 
in ideal lives, teach us how to order the conduct of our 
own. We are not creatures of a day, living for the gratifi- 
cation of our physical being ; we have an exalted nature, 
capable of infinite possibilities, which we ideally repre- 
sent. When the physical side shall melt, and even the 
world on which it depends pass away, that nature will only 
have began its unfolding. 

In the tangled web of mortal life, beset on one hand by 
clamorous instincts, and eoaded on the other by the re- 
provings of angelic aspirations, we still inquire, as did the 
sages of old, what is truth? what is right? what wrong? 
how shall we escape ? 

If we answer, By a just co-ordination of all the faculties 



INTRODUCTION. IX 

of the mind, and a harmony maintained by dominant 
moral and intellectual power, then is required the methods 
through and by which this end is attainable. 

Most perfectly does Spiritualism answer. Her robes of 
spotless purity are flung as a mantle of all-comprehending 
charity over all. She has no word of condemnation and 
contumely for the wrong-doer, but for the wrong. She 
points not the finger of scorn at the writhing sinner, but 
at the sin. She utters no words of partial praise for those 
who never stumble. As the infinite forces of nature pour 
out blessings alike on all, so she makes no distinction in 
the breadth of her benevolence. Her voice is melodious 
with loye while it speaks of eternal and unswerving 
justice. 

Listen, oh, mortal, to her voice, and learn how it is pos- 
sible to climb the golden stairway of immortal life, be- 
coming day by day, year by year, and century by century, 
perfected in the infinite capabilities of the spirit — learn 
how to triumph over the accidents of mortal life, meeting 
all its duties and bearing all its burdens with cheerful 
heart, laying the deep foundation of that temple immortal, 
beyond the shadow of death. 



THE ETHICS OF SPIRITUALISM. 



CHAPTER I. 



THE INDIVIDUAL. 



The individual has fought the battle of history. The de- 
termination of the sphere of mine and thine, where the I 
terminates in society, has been the bloody battle-field of the 
past; nor has the ever fresh problem yet been solved. In 
a just and natural order, the individual should surrender 
no rights to society. Whatever is right for the mass, is 
right for the individual. As all rights of society are 
founded on individual rights, the study of the individual 
is the key whereby the social order must be resolved. 

The individual, then, first claims our attention. We are 
not to regard him as a being degraded from a higher estate, 
with distorted faculties and abnormal desires, outside of 
animal life and supernatural. He is a direct outgrowth 
from the life beneath him, still retaining clearly defined 
traces of his origin, in his instinctive nature, to which are 
added superior qualities more or less defined. 

Man is distinguished from animals by these superior or 
moral faculties. In the brute there is a prophesy of qual- 
ities allied to morality, but in none of them is there any- 
thing like a clear perception between right and wrong. 
Of their actions, we cannot say they are immoral, for they 
have no such guidance. They act by impulse or desire, 
and not from a sense of duty. It may be said of savage 
man, and of the savage of civilized life, that they are as 
destitute of morals as the brute, and hence not blamable. 
This fact is the cause of inextricable confusion in the old 
systems, wherein the distinction between the animal and 
man have been attempted to be set forth. If an animal 
kills a man it is not held responsible as morally guilty, 
while a man who kills his fellow is guilty of the highest 
crime against morals. It is said the man knew better; he 
had a free choice, and chose the part of guilt. 



12 THE ETHICS OF SPIRITUALISM: 

While this might apply to cultured minds, such as the 
philosophers who study the theme of ethics, it does not to 
the class who usually commit such actions. The savage is 
almost as much a creature of blind impulse as the brute, 
and has as little choice. The feelings excited by con- 
templation of similar acts in the brute and man, are 
results of the distinction in motives. The brute is pitied, 
man is blamed, often mercy being lost in hot indignation. 

If this be an error, it is relieved by the fact that while 
the brute is incapable of moral culture, and must be ruled 
by fear, or hope of reward, 

THE LOWEST MAN IS SUSCEPTIBLE OP INFINITE IMPROVE- 
MENT. 

The moral faculties ever are present and may be awakened 
by proper stimulants. 

It is the possession of moral faculties, that makes a 
science of morals possible, and the possibility of their cul- 
ture gives such science its great and beneficent influence. 
While moral perceptions were early in appearance, the de- 
velopment of anything like a system of ethics was reserved 
for recent time. The broad relations of individuals and 
society were seized and expressed in proverbs and laws, 
but the subtle questions lying at the foundation were too 
complex for such general statement. Of all the depart- 
ments of thought, this lies nearest the central existence of 
the spirit. The physical sciences are objective, and in- 
terest the senses. This is the study of the mind by the 
mind itself. It enters the secret chambers and studies the 
methods of its own activities and the causes which incite 
them. 

DUTY. 

An animal rushes at, lacerates and crushes a man. We 
utter no word of censure. The animal has been true to its 
brute instincts ; we commiserate the result, and do not hold 
it responsible. We may even censure its victim, if he has 
provoked the attack. 

A man sheds the blood of his fellow. At once we cen- 
sure the act. We say he ought not to have done the deed. 
Why? Because he knew better. Here is introduced a 
word which conveys a meaning unequivocal and distinct. 
We do not say of the animal, it ought not, for it has no 
faculty comprehending ought We say it of man because 
he has such faculty. He has a sense of duty, of obli- 



A SYSTEM OF MORAL PHILOSOPHY. 13 

gation, for doing or not doing, to which the animal is a 
stranger. He is the thrall of a higher sphere of motives, 
and if he is not obedient, he sinks at once to the animal 
plane. In fact, he sinks far lower, for the blind instincts 
of the animal in him are intensified by the intellect, direct- 
ing and directed. 

When we consider man as a product of evolution, and not 
as a fallen being, we eliminate from the discussion the in- 
tricate dogmas of his fall, and redemption through vicari- 
ous atonement. Moral philosophy becomes a science to be 
advanced by research and observation, in the same manner 
as other sciences. We are no longer confused by meta- 
physical argumentation based on the twisted meaning of 
words, and dogmatic theology yields its place as blind 
autocrat. 

In this study we regard the mind as a unity composed 
of diversity. It is the bane of metaphysical systems that 
they analyze the mind into several groups of faculties 
more or less arbitrary, and then reason from such classi- 
fications as though they were finalities. By this means 
the mental powers have come to be regarded as distinct, 
clearly defined, and independent in their action. The 
same error enters into what may be termed anatomical 
psychology. The brain is mapped into divisions more or 
less minute, and from these the mind is formed, as a gov. 
ernment of many individual states. However accurately 
the brain may be divided, or sharply defined its several 
functions, the mind must be regarded as a whole, arising 
from the blending of them all. A greater error, because 
leading to ruinous consequences, is the doctrine that all 
the faculties being natural and necessary, should be re- 
garded as equals, and the action of one as right as another. 
Casting aside revelation as a standard of authority, as will 
be discussed in a future chapter, man has nothing outside 
of himself to which to appeal. If he appeals to his own 
faculties, he must know how to interpret their voice. In 
a conflict between them, he must have some criterion by 
which he can decide. 

For this understanding we must know man's position in 
the universe, and the purposes and functions for which his 
mental faculties are adapted. We shall thereby learn if 
they are equal in authority in the determination of con- 
duct, or if they are co-ordinated in an ascending series, 



14 THE ETHICS OF SPIRITUALISM: 

the lower subject to the higher. We shall ascertain which 
are the higher, which the lower, and the distinct provinces 
of each. 

POSITION OP MAN. 

Man is the superlative being, the last, greatest, and yet 
incomplete effort of creative energy. I shall consider him 
in the two-fold aspect of a physical and spiritual being, 
related on the one side to the material world, and on the 
other to the spiritual. Since the motto "Know thyself" 
was carved on the portal of a Grecien temple, the study of 
man has been the most absorbing pursuit of the thinker; 
for all departments of science cluster around him as a 
centre, and a perfect knowledge of him is a comprehension 
of the universe. Early was the momentous question asked 
by the soul blindly calling for an understanding of itself : 
What is man f The solution was felt to be fraught with in- 
finite consequences, not only in this life but the inter- 
minable future, which was vaguely shadowed on the un- 
derstanding of savage man. The answer early given, in 
the very childhood of the race, became the foundation of 
the great religious systems of the world. The conjecture 
of untutored minds became the received system of causa- 
tion, and growing hoary with age arrogated to itself infal- 
lible authority, and required implicit faith, and the exercise 
of reason only in making palatable the requirements of 
that faith. Conceived in an age when nature was an un- 
known realm, and law and order not imagined to control 
or direct causes to effects, when science opened her mys- 
teries to the understanding, and one by one dogmas claim- 
ing infallibility were shown to be false, there of necessity 
was antagonism and conflict. I do not propose to enlarge 
on the theological aspect of this subject more than inci- 
dentally. That treatment has grown threadbare, "stale, 
flat and unprofitable." for every drop of vital juice it con- 
tained has been extracted long ago. The interminable 
sects, wrangling over the dogmatic solution of the vital 
question of man's origin and destiny, arriving at nothing 
determinate, wrangling with each other and themselves, 
do not furnish incentives to follow their paths. If meta- 
physical theology contained the germ of truthful solution, 
satisfaction would have resulted ages ago, and the mind, re- 
posing contented with the answer, would have employed its 
energy in other directions. Instead there is restlessness, tur- 



A SYSTEM OF MORAL PHILOSOPHY. 15 

moil, conflict and indecision, and never has been an answer 
90 broad and deep in catholicity of truth as to meet the 
demand. If science fail also, it is not the irretrievable 
failure of assumed infallibility. Its teachings are ever 
tentative, and prophecies of final triumph. As the most 
ennobling study of mankind is man, the crowning work of 
science is the solution of this vexed question. By science 
I mean accurate knowledge, close and careful observation 
of phenomena, and the conclusions drawn therefrom. 

MAN A DUAL STRUCTURE. 

While theology, Brahminical,Buddhistical or Christian, 
teaches that man is an incarnate spirit, independent of the 
physical body, created by miracle, supported by a succes- 
sion of miracles, and saved by miracle from eternal death, 
material science, as at present taught by its leading expo- 
nents, wholly ignores his spiritual life, and declares him 
to be a physical being only. It is not my purpose to 
reconcile these conflicting views. Truths never require 
reconciliation. They never conflict, and if the results of 
two different methods of investigation are at variance, one 
or the other is in error, and the only reconciliation is the 
elimination of that error. The egotisms of theology and 
the pride of science array their votaries in oposition, while 
the truth remains unquestioned in the unexplored middle 
ground. Man is neither a spirit nor a body ; he is the inti- 
mate union of both. In and through his physical being; 
the spiritual nature is evolved from the forces of the ele- 
ments, and is expressed. There is somewhat more enduring 
than the resultants of chemical unions, actions and reac- 
tions in his physical body. Beneath this organic con- 
struction is that which remains, to which it is the scaffold- 
ing which assists, while it conceals the development ol the 
real edifice. 

PHYSICAL MAN. 

First, as most tangible and obvious in this investigation, 
is the physical man, the body, the temple of the soul. The 
student, even when imbued with the doctrine of material- 
ism, arises from the study of the physical machine with 
wonder and surprise akin to awe, declaring man to be fear- 
fully and wonderfully made. 

It is not surprising that we die, but that we live. The 
rupture of a nerve fibre, the obstruction of a valve, the 
momentary cessation of breath, the introduction of a mote 
at some vital point, brings this most complex structure to 



16 THE ETHICS OF SPIRITUALISM: 

eternal rest. By what constant oversight, by what persis. 
tency of reparation is it preserved from ruin! 

This physical man is an animal, amenable to the laws of 
animal growth. His body is the type of which theirs are 
but imperfect copies. From two or three mineral sub- 
stances his bones are crystalized, and articulated as the 
bones of all vertebrate animals, and over them the muscles 
are extended. From the amphioxus, too low in the scale of 
being to be called a fish, a being without organs, without 
a brain, little more than an elongated sack of gelatinous 
substance, through which a white line marks the position 
of the spinal cord and the future spinal axis, there is a 
slow and steady evolution to the perfected skeleton of man. 
His osseous structure is the type of all. The fin of the fish, 
the huge paddle of the whale, the cruel paw of the tiger, 
the hoof of the horse, the wing of the bird, and the won- 
derfully flexible hand of man, so exquisite in adaptations 
as to be taken as an unqualified evidence of Design, are all 
fashioned out of the same elementary bones, after one 
model. The change of form to meet the wants of their 
possessors, results from the relative enlargement or atrophy 
of one or more of these elements. When the fleshy en- 
velope is stripped away from them, it is astonishing how 
like these apparently divergent forms really are. In the 
whale the flesh unites the huge bones of the fingers, and 
produces a broad, oar-like fin ; in the tiger the nails be- 
come retractile talons ; in the bird some of the fingers are 
atrophied, while others are elongated to support the feath- 
ers which are to offer resistance to the air in flight; in the 
horse the bones of the fingers are consolidated, and the 
united nails appear in the hoof. 

If there exists such perfect similarity in the bony struc- 
ture of man to the animal world, the muscular system for 
which it furnishes support offers the same likeness. Trace 
any muscle in the human body from its origin to its termi- 
nation, mark the points where it seizes the bones, the func- 
tion it performs, and then dissect the most obscure or dis- 
reputable member of the vertebrate kingdom, and you 
will find the same muscle performing the same function. 
The talons of the tiger are extended and flexed by muscles 
similar to those which give flexibility to the human hand, 
and the same elements are traceable in the ponderous pad- 
dle of the whale. 

More vital than the bony framework, or the muscles to 



A SYSTEM OF MORAL PHILOSOPHY. 17 

which it gives support, is the nervous system, seemingly 
not only the central source of vital power, but the means 
of union and sympathetic relation of every cell and fibre 
of the entire body. 

The brain has been aptly compared to a central tele- 
graphic office, and the nerves to the extended wires, which 
hold in communication and direct relation all ihe organs, 
and from which the functions of each are directed. 

The nervous system is the bridge which spans the chasm 
between matter and spirit, and the battle between Materi- 
alism and Spiritualism must be ought not only with brain, 
but in the province of brain. The issue directly stated is this : 
Does the brain yield mind as the result of organic changes 
in its cells and fibres, or is mind a manifestation through and 
by means of the brain of something superior and beyond ? 
The materialists boldly assert that " mind is a secretion of 
the brain, as bile is of the l£ver." They claim to be scien- 
tists, and rely only on facts, yet the most profound in their 
ranks admit that the structure of the brain is a mystery, its 
functions unfathomable, and really nothing is absolutely 
known of the offices it sustains to the body, or the methods 
by which these are performed. They are satisfied with the 
investigation of what may be called secondary relations 
and effects. The chemist has found phosphorus and sul- 
phur in the nerve substance, and hence it is claimed that 
they are essential to thought. So much phosphorus, so 
much thought, and so much waste product of decomposi- 
tion. These philosophers have gone so far as to prescribe 
the diet for students. Fish abound in phosphorus, and are 
hence the best brain food. But you feel sure phosphorus 
never wrote Homer's Iliad, or solved the problem of gravi- 
tation. It is not phosphorus, or carbon, or nitrogen, how- 
ever vigorously oxydized, that pulsates in the emotions of 
friendship or love; that feels, and thinks, and knows; that 
recollects the past, and anticipates the future, and reaches 
out in infinite aspirations for perfection. Phosphorus 
will not, nor will any of the elements, nor any of their 
combinations. 

The actions of thought on the brain, the effort compel- 
ling the body to serve the bidding of the spirit, may con- 
sume this element and many others, as the movement of 
an engine consumes the coal and wastes the steam, but the 



18 THE ETHICS OF SPIRITUALISM: 

coal and the steam are only the means whereby mind im- 
presses itself on matter. 

The Materialist studies the brain as a person wholly un- 
acquainted with an engine, and mistaking it for a living 
being, might be supposed to do. He would observe its 
motion and weighing the coal consumed and the products 
of combustion, would say that they appeared in steam, 
which after propelling the piston was waste. The design 
in the engine, the effect of these combinations and this 
waste, this observer would claim to be the guiding intelli- 
gence. And he would further argue that so much coal in 
the grate, so much water in the boiler, and you have so 
much intelligence, and the waste may be pre-determined 
by chemical formulae ! 

Until the threshold of the structure of the nervous sys- 
tem and the functions of the brain have been passed, the 
primary principles of scientific investigation would at 
least require modesty in asserting conclusions of such mo- 
mentous consequences. 

If it be claimed that man is a natural being, originated 
and sustained by natural laws, that he came without 
miracle, then do we unite the margins of the human 
and animal kingdoms, and are satisfied with placing 
man at the head of the animal world. An interminable 
and unbroken series of beings extends in a gradual grada- 
tion downwards, until the organs by which the phenomena 
of life are manifested are lost one by one, the senses disap- 
pear, and we arrive at what has been aptly termed " proto- 
plasm." not an organized form, but simply organizable mat- 
ter, or matter from which organic forms can be produced. 

If in reviewing this chain of beings, slowly arising by 
constant evolution, we closely examine several of its con- 
secutive links, we shall find that while each is ap- 
parently complete, yet it is only the germ out of which 
the next is evolved in superior forms. Each link is a 
prophecy of future superiority. We can trace the fulfill- 
ment of the prophecy of one age in the next, until man ap- 
pears as the last term in the physical series. 

They who teach us this doctrine of evolution, which is 
to life what the law of gravitation is to worlds, also teach 
that united with the doctrtne of " conservation of force," 
our hope of immortality becomes a dream. 

What a sham they make of creation ! What a turmoil 



A SYSTEM OF MORAL PHILOSOPHY. 19 

for no result! Infinite ages of progress and evolution, 
during which elemental matter, by force of inherent laws, 
sought to individualize itself and incarnate its force in 
living beings ; ages of struggle upwards from low to high, 
from sensitive to sentient, from sentient to intellectual, 
from zoophyte to man ! And now, having accomplished 
this, and given man exquisite susceptibility of thought, of 
love, of affection, making him the last factor in the series, 
he is doomed to perish ! What is gained by this travail 
of the ages ? It would have been as well had the series 
stopped with the huge saurians of the primeval slime, or 
the mastodon and mammoth of pre-historic times, as with 
man. As each factor in the series prophesies future forms, 
so does man read in the same light, prophecy forms beyond. 
They cannot be in the line of greater physical perfection 
for in the days of Greece and Rome man was as perfect 
physically, as is seen by their sculptures, as to-day. Ages 
ago this exceeding beauty was attained. It cannot be in 
the evolution of a being superior to man, for in each 
lower animal imperfect organs or structures, or partially 
employed functions, are improvable and perfected by suc- 
ceeding forms, in man the archetype is complete, and no 
partially developed organ Indicates the possibility of fu- 
ture change. 

THE COURSE OF PROGRESS CHANGED. 

Progress having arrived at its limits with the body, 
changes its direction, and appears in the advancement of 
mind. Death closes the career of individuality, and we 
live only in thoughts — our selfhood is absorbed in the 
ocean of being. Mankind perfects as a whole, and the 
sighed-for millennium is coming by-and-bye. 

Of what avail is it to us if future generations are wise 
and noble, if we pass into nonentity? Of what avail to 
them to be wise and noble, if life is only the fleeting hour? 
Not yet will I believe Nature to be such a sham— such a 
cruel failure. The spirit rebels against the supposition of 
its mortality. The body is its habiliment. Shall the 
coat be claimed to be the entire man ? Shall the garments 
ignore the wearer ? 

This is the animal side of man. Physically composed 
of the same elements, and having passed through these in- 
numerable changes, he is an epitome of the universe. As 
man was foreshadowed in remotest ages as the crowning 



20 THE ETHICS OF SPIRITUALISM: 

type in the series of organic life, so man foreshadows su- 
perior excellence. Springing out of his physical perfecti- 
bility, arises a new world of spiritual wants and aspira- 
tions, unanswered and unanswerable in mortal life. 

IF THERE IS AN IMMORTAL SPIRIT, IT MUST BE ORIGI- 
NATED AND SUSTAINED BY NATURAL LAWS. 

If this be true, we are to seek the origin of the individu- 
alized spirit with the origin of the physical body. We are 
to place the growth of one with that of the other. The 
physical body is the scaffolding by which the spiritual be- 
ing is sustained, and when matured sufficiently, remains 
after that support is taken away. 

A certain stage of progress or perfection must be reached 
before this result, else all living beings would be immortal. 
Like the arch, which unless completed falls as soon as the 
scaffolding is removed, the spiritual part of the animal 
falls at death. Continue the task still further and place 
the keystone in position, and the arch remains self-sup- 
porting. 



CHAPTER II. 



THE GENESIS AND EVOLUTION OF SPIRIT. 

All religious systems of necessity are based on immor- 
tality, without which, religion is impossible. Man may 
be moral without belief in the future. But the faith and 
knowledge of a life infinitely continued, sheds a glory 
over the present, and consecrates the character. The mo- 
tives of the hour become sanctified with the mighty influ- 
ences which are theirs, in their interminable reach, and 
every act has a new significance in the super-added eter- 
nal relation. 

Moral science is the crowning arch of all knowledge, 
•the latest and the best. Its study involves that of all 
others, for the moral faculties are the acquisition of an 
ascending series, are directly related with the faculties 
which reach down and lay hold of the physical world. 
They are hence subject to laws, form a continuity, and are 



A SYSTEM OF MORAL PHILOSOPHY. 21 

a factor in the mental unity. That we may comprehend 
the foundations on which we build the spiritual temple 
whose azurline dome is crowned with the heaven-light of 
a religion sublimated him a pure morality, a brief out- 
line of the relations of the spiritual and physical universe 
is here introduced. On this ascending order we found our 
classification of the mental faculties, as the order of beings 
is acertained from embryonic growths, and shall determine 
the higher from the lower. 

THE ORIGIN OP MATTER AND FORCE. 

The origin of matter and force evade the grasp of the hu- 
man mind. Consistent philosophy can only rest its sure 
foundations on the admission of the co-eternity of the atom 
and the forces which emanate therefrom. We have no 
knowledge of the creation or destruction of the least frag- 
ment of matter. We are only acquainted with change. 
The wood or coal burns in the grate and disappears, leav- 
ing a small residuum of ashes. Has the fire destroyed the 
matter of which the coal was formed? Ah, no! If we 
confine the escaping gasses, and add the ashes thereto, the 
whole will weigh precisely as much as the original coal. 
Matter has changed form. Carbon has united with ox- 
ygen, and carbonic acid and other gasses escape invisibly 
into the air. Allowed to freely float in the atmosphere, 
these atoms are soon brought into the circulation of living 
beings, remaining the same centers of force. 

Nor is the force lost. It disappears, as the solid coal dis- 
appears in the atmosphere, but retains in its new form all 
its potentiality. No discovery of modern times has had 
greater influence than that of the indestructibility of mo- 
tion. I have instanced the burning of coal. We say it is 
destroyed and the heat which it produced has ceased. In 
both expressions are we at fault, for as the carbon of the 
coal has changed its form, and heat has resulted from the 
change, that form of force has not cea3edto be after warm- 
ing our dwellings. The carbon of the coal was secreted 
by the action of the heat and light of the sun during the 
coal period. It existed as carbonic acid gas in the atmos- 
phere, and the rays of the sun tore asunder the carbon and 
oxygen of the gas, and the former was stored away by the 
plant, at length to become coal. What then have we, when 
we allow these atoms of carbon and oxygen to rush to- 
gether? The phenomenon of heat, or in other words the 



22 THE ETHICS OF SPIRITUALISM: 

identical force which existed millions of ages ago when 
the coal was in the circulating sap of the plant, tore them 
asunder. 

If we place the coal in the furnace of an engine, the heat 
it affords is changed into motion, and if possible to utilize 
it all, the amount of motion will exactly equal the amount 
of heat. Thus a pound of coal represents a certain amount 
of force derived primarily from the sun. If burned in a 
furnace and perfectly economized, it will ^ive the engine 
power to raise a certain number of pounds one foot; or if 
the engine drive a machine to create friction, that friction 
will produce light and heat exactly equal to the quantity 
of sunlight and heat originally required to create the pound 
of coal; or it may be applied to produce electricity, and 
that electricity will be sufficient to produce light and heat 
of the same degree, or to propel another engine of the 
same power. In all these changes of form of motion, to 
light, to heat, to electricity, and revertive to motion, noth- 
ing is gained, nothing lost. It is the same as with a given 
quantity of water, congealed to ice, or vaporized by heat, 
form only is changed. 

FOUNDATION OF SPIRITUALISM. 

Here on the assumed co-eternity of Matter and Force, on 
the foundation of rigid Materialism, we plant our philoso- 
phy of Spiritualism. Without such basis, scientific rea- 
soning is futile and vain. Ascend the stream of time as 
far as we may, we find new formations at every step, but 
creations never. The Old System ever contains the germ 
of the New, and the process is of wondrous and consecu- 
tive growth. When we reach the threshold of the present 
order, the remote chaos of the beginning, the ruins of 
prexisting cycles, declare that even this vast duration is 
only one swing of the solar pendulum by which the uni- 
verse is governed. 

From this fixed foundation we can study the grand pro- 
cess of evolution in the Material world, and also in the 
world of spirit. For let me here premise that I hold one 
as rigidly to the control of law as the other, If man pos- 
sesses an immortal spirit, that spirit is created and sus- 
tained by fixed and determinate laws. It is not a gift be 
stowed, it is a fact of his organization. 

I propose to treat this great problem from this stand- 
point, well knowing the magnitude of the task I assume 



A SYSTEM OF MORAL PHILOSOPHY. 23 

and the difficulties to be met. So far as I am aware this 
is the first attempt to reduce spiritual existence to the do- 
minion of law, or extend the process of formation in a 
continuous and direct line from physical forms to spirit- 
ual life. 

DEFINITION OF SPIRIT. 

How far removed this subject is from the path of exact 
observation or scientific thought, I need only to quote the 
received definition of spirit to show. It is according to 
the standard lexicon, " The intelligent, immaterial and im- 
mortal part of human beings." If immaterial, spirit at 
once escapes us. The methods by which we investigate 
physical nature are worthless, and it is amenable to no 
laws which we can ascertain. But how can an immaterial 
being have intelligence ? How, even, can it exist ? It is 
an absolute nothing, an intelligent nothing, an immortal 
nothing ! And this nothingness, is not a fact of organization, 
but a gift from God ! Ardent, indeed, is the imagination of 
the metaphysician who accepts such an existence, and 
maintains its desirability. This immaterial part they, say 
is a fragment from the Divine Being, and is an image of 
him in quality, but differs in degree. Not a step has been 
made since the Brahmins of the Granges, so remote that 
our historic dates are of yesterday, perfected their system 
ot theology. Man's spirit was a portion of the Infinite 
Spirit and was after passing through a certain cycle re-ab- 
sorbed into the divine bosom, to flow out again in an end- 
less succession of being. This theory is plausible, but be- 
ing entirely imaginary, is no more worthy of credence 
than the vagaries of a dream. Here the speculations of 
one man are as reliable as those of another, and all are as 
idle conjectures, for at the very beginning it is impossible 
for finite man to know any thing of the Infinite Spirit, and 
how then so flippantly assert that the spirit of man is a 
detached fragment or spark from this Infinite Source ? 

RE-INCARNATION. 

Nor is the modified form of this theory known as re-in- 
carnation less objectionable. The spirit is something for. 
eign to the physical body, which takes up its abode there- 
in. This is a very old idea, and is received in almost its 
original form, as advocated by the Pythagorian and Pla- 
tonic schools. In proof it is said there are those who dis- 



24 THE ETHICS OF SPIRITUALISM. 

tinctly recollect passages in their previous existence. As 
the poet has said: — 

" Some draught of Lethe doth await 
As old mythologies relate, 
The slipping through from State to State." 

But memory is not always silenced. Sometimes the po- 
tent draught is not sufficiently powerful ; and then we de- 
cipher the mystic lines of some previous state: — 

" And ever something is or seems, 
That touches us with mystic gleams, 
Like glimpses of forgotten dreams." 

Plato regarded this life as ODly a recognized moment 
between two eternities, the past and the future. Innate 
ideas and the sentiment of pre-existence prove our past. 
To Plato, representative of the light attained of ancient 
thought, such might be satisfactory evidence, but to us, 
with the knowledge we possess of the physiology of the 
brain, they are of little value. 

If the spirit is an independent portion of the Deity, 
what can it possibly gain by re-incarnation ? 

It is claimed that spirits who have sinned in the body 
are obliged to re-incarnate themselves for purification. If 
the spirit is essentially pure, and becomes corrupt by con- 
tact with the body, it is strange, indeed, a second contact 
is able to purify. If we admit the theory of re-incarnation, 
the birth of every human being is a miracle and the spir- 
itual realm at once removes itself from rational investiga- 
tion. The difficulties which lie in the way of its reception 
are insurmountable; the greatest of which is, that at best 
it offers a speculative solution to a problem far better 
solved by the application of known causes. The entire 
animal world must receive its living element in the same 
manner, and re-incarnation must apply to brutes as well 
as man, for one type of structure pervades all living 
beings. 

Say you this incarnate or physical state is one of proba- 
tion ; I ask how a portion of the infinite can take on a 
probationary state, and being absolutely perfect, what 
benefit does it derive from incarnation, or by repeated re- 
incarnations V The higher can gain nothing by contact 
with the lower, and if spirit exists independent of matter, 
and living beings receive the breath of life by receiving a 
portion of the spiritual essence, then that essence must be 



A SYSTEM OF MORAL PHILOSOPHY. 25 

the loser, and repeated contacts degrade rather than ele- 
vate it. That we lose our consciousness of the preceding 
states is among the least of objections, for consciousness 
and memory are often treacherous. The cardinal objec- 
tion which supplants all others, is derived from a study of 
the constitution and order of the world. Nature has one 
structural plan extending from the animalcule to man, tak- 
ing in with all embracing sweep the vegetable and animal 
kingdoms. In accordance with that plan all beings be- 
neath man are developed. Why are we to suppose that, 
although his physical form is a direct continuance of the 
line of progress as expressed in animals, and his psychical 
being different from theirs, not in kind, but degree, a new 
method is introduced which sets aside and renders worth- 
less this interminable series of advancing life ? Man would 
exist just the same were not this new method introduced, 
as the laws of creation extend directly to him. They con- 
sequently disturb the otherwise unbroken harmony of na- 
ture by the introduction of a miracle. 

An oak germinates from an acorn, under the favorable 
conditions of moisture and warmth by which the germ is 
enabled to expand according to the laws of its growth. It 
is not necessary to suppose the spirit of a decayed oak 
takes possession of the acorn to clothe itself again with 
woody fibre. We say the acorn becomes an oak by the 
laws of growth. 

The lion reproduces its kind, and we again refer the pro- 
cess to the laws of its growth, nor feel required to call to 
our aid the spirits of lions. 

As the development of man is in a direct line from the 
animal world, why should we depart from the observed 
order in his case ? 

If we received the theory of re-incarnation and that the 
spirit is a fragment of the Divine spirit, as the physical 
body is of the physical world, the difficulties are by no 
means escaped. We can see that the infinite series of cre- 
ation is the means whereby the fragment we call the 
body was broken off from the physical world. By what 
process was the fragment broken off from the spiritual 
world ? To say that some humau spirits are re-incarnations 
while others are not, will not suffice, for all are re-incar- 
nations, else none. If all are, then this difficulty is only 
placed more remote for the first incarnation must have oc- 



26 THE ETHICS OF SPIRITUALISM: 

curred at some time, and how was that effected ? How, 
was the individual spirit at first created by, or detached 
from, the Infinite Spirit ? Thus at every point the theory 
is beset with insurmountable difficulties, and it ever ap- 
pears supposititious, as the psychical phenomena it seeks to 
explain are consistently referred to the known laws of the 
world. 

I shall now sketch, as clearly as I may in the brief space 
allotted me, an outline of what may be called the plan of 
creation, revealed by the light of recent investigation. 

DEAD MATTER. 

The old idea of the inertness of matter, that it is dead 
and inanimate, only moving when acted upon by superior 
force, has become obsolete. Whether we regard the atom 
to which matter is finally reduced as a pulsating centre of 
force, or as an entity, affects not our conclusion. If an 
entity, we can never know anything of it except by means 
of the forces flowing from it. We never see, feel, taste nor 
touch matter. It is its properties or atmosphere which af. 
feet us. All visible effects are produced by invisible 
causes. All the forces of nature act from within outward 
11 The things to be explained," remarks a modern thinker, 
" are changes, active effects, motions in ordinary matter, 
not as acted upon, but as in itself inherently active. The 
chief use of atoms is to serve as points or vehicles of mo- 
tion. Thus the study of matter resolves itself into the 
study of forces. Inert objects, as they appear to the eye of 
sense, are replaced by the activities revealed to the eye of 
the intellect. The conceptions of ' gross,' ' corrupt,' ■ brute 
matter,' are passing away with the prejudices of the past ; 
and in place of a dead, material world, we have a living 
organism of spiritual energies." 

The organization of atoms can not manifest any quality, 
that does not reside in the single atom. Hence, if matter 
in its aggregation yields the phenomena of life and con- 
sciousness, the atom must contain the possibilities of life 
and consciousness 

The revolutions of satellites around planets ; of planets 
around suns ; of suns around solar centres, the floodings of 
light, heat and magnetism, in their grand order may be 
termed the life of the world. The same forces concentrated 
in lesser spheres, yield what we term life, as exhibited in 
sentient beings. 



A SYSTEM OF MORAL PHILOSOPHY. 27 

We are to divest ourselves at once of the old idea of the 
inertness of matter. It has within itself the forces by 
which it acts, without which it could not exist. 

We have to deal with force, or what has ever been term- 
ed spirit, from the beginning. Beyond this force and visi- 
ble matter may lie the domain of the Infinite Mind, the ex- 
pression of whose will and purpose these phenomena are. 
Our present object is to ascend only to the limit of 
known causes and there lay the foundation of our philos- 
ophy. 

Do not say I deny the existence of the Infinite One, for 
I neither deny nor affirm. From the necessity of his or- 
ganization which renders him finite, man can not compre- 
hend the Infinite, and it is useless for him to indulge in 
such idle speculations. I here deal with the known, and 
leave the vast unknown for future research. I, accept the 
existence of matter and force, as indivisible and co-eternal, 
nor pause to pursue the futile inquiry of their creation, or 
relation to an Infinite Spirit. Whatever that Spirit may 
be, the laws of matter, by which term I mean the fixed or- 
der of events, is the only means we possess of understand- 
ing and bringing ourselves in contact with him. 

PHYSICAL PROGRESS. 

Our present purpose is answered by ascending the stream 
of time only to the period of the introduction of living be- 
ings on the globe, and then by rapidly tracing their evolu- 
tion, to solve the problems propounded at the beginning. 
The telescope reveals in the cosmical cloud, the uncon- 
densed world-vapor, in which our solar system must have 
originally existed, and mathematics has achieved its 
grandest triumph in showing that the relations of the 
planets is such as it should be were they formed by the ro- 
tation of such a mass of condensing vapor on its axis. The 
earth thrown off from its central sun by the radiation of 
heat, became a liquid ball, and by further radiation a crust 
cooled over the intensely heated fluid center. The atmos- 
phere was dense with the vapors of volatilized elements 
which were too intensely heated to unite in compounds, 
and not until the temperature became lower, did oxygen 
and hydrogen unite and form the vapor of water. When 
the temperature was still further reduced this vapor con- 
densed and fell in showers on the heated surface. 



28 THE ETHICS OF SPIRITUALISM: 

Then began a new series of actions and reactions, which 
for awful sublimity can only be witnessed in the primeval 
state of worlds. The water falling from the dense atmos- 
phere surcharged with volatile elements, ran down into 
the hollows of the rocks, penetrating the crevices and 
coming in contact with the internal heat, became recon- 
verted to steam, rending the surface into fragments, and 
disintegrating and pulverizing the porous rock. Collect- 
ing in larger basins, thermal lakes and seas were formed, 
which boiled like great chaldrons, sending up steam and 
spray. Confusion prevailed. Land and water intermin- 
gled, the sea being an archipelago of thickly interspersed 
islands of rugged rocks. The low, irregular peaks scarce- 
ly appeared above the black waves, and their rugged sides 
spoke of their fiery birth. The weird landscape of desola- 
tion was enveloped with a black and lowering atmosphere 
in which the storm never ceased. Creation put on a 
strange garb in those, her morning days, yet order reigned 
supreme amid the wild confusion. Even then the vast 
plan of creation in all its minutia, was written in the se- 
cret chambers of the constitution of the atom, and this 
commotion was only its throes and spasms, to give it more 
complete expression. 

In this weird sea, overhung with black clouds and tossed 
by earthquakes, in which the latest of the metamorphic or 
primitive stratified rocks, were being produced from the 
crumbling clifls, the first form of life made its appearance; 
a gellatinous mass formed by the aggregation ot cells, 
neither vegetable nor animal, but combining both king- 
doms, within its microscopic mass. 

A portion of the metamorphic group, several thousand 
feet in thickness, and the entire cambrian and Cumbrian 
series ten thousand feet in thickness, or nearly three miles 
of rock intervenes between this period where we fix the 
dawn of life, and the beginning of the Silurian where mol- 
lusks, not as high in the scale of being as the oyster, were 
the most advanced forms of life on the globe. When the 
mind endeavors to grasp the vast duration represented by 
that three miles of rock, formed by the slow deposition 
of sediment on the floor of the ocean, it finds itself wholly 
inadequate to the task. 



A SYSTEM OF MORAL PHILOSOPHY. 29 

ORIGIN OF LIFE. 

The experimental researches of several scientific men in 
England and France, show that the low forms of life al- 
ways appear under certain conditions, however guarded 
the experiments in preventing the presence of germs 
Those by Bastian are most extended, and carry the ques- 
tion beyond reasonable doubt that the singularly formed 
fungi and active atomies were spontaneous generations in 
the carefully sealed vessels in which his experiments were 
conducted. What renders these results the more interest- 
ing, is that the forms which appeared were such as the 
theory of spontaneous generation requires. Had they 
been comparatively light in the scale of being, that very 
fact would have invalidated the experiments indicating the 
unobserved presence of germs. 

It is probable that these simple aggregations of cells 
have been produced in all ages. The cell is the beginning 
of all forms of life; even in reproducing life in any man- 
ner, as by division or parentage. The cell is the primary 
form from which the infinite series of vegetable and ani- 
mal life is derived. Life is inherent in matter, and living 
beings are the individualization of that life. Its individ- 
ualization was the result of conditions such as now exist 
in the sea, so that should the earth be divested of living 
beings, it would begin a new series of advancement, differ- 
ing only from that recorded in the rocky strata by the su- 
periority of present conditions to those of the original 
chaos. 

The fragment was broken from the world of matter and 
individualized, and by evolution the gradual unfolding of 
inherent qualities, we can trace its growth through the 
successive geological ages. It is not possible, nor desira- 
ble here, to trace with completeness the progress from the 
microscopic cellular atomy to the highest form of mam- 
mals. The great Darwin has, with a flood of facts, bridged 
the vast distance, and established the doctrine of creation 
by evolution, in a direct and continuous line, in a fixed 
and unvarying order. 

ORIGIN OF MAN. 

The forces of change are operating to-day with the same 
swift but noiseless energy as in the past. The once prev- 
alent notion of catastrophes has passed away. The geo- 
logical ages are no longer divided by sharp lines, formed 



30 THE ETHICS OF SPIRITUALISM : 

by overwhelming convulsions, but fade into each other. 
From the cellular atomy to the mollusk ; from mollusk to 
the fish and reptile ; from the reptile to the warm-blooded 
animal, is one unbroken line of ascent. The animate be- 
ings of each age are direct outgrowths of the preceding. 
The same course of reasoning applies to man. There is as 
little necessity to introduce miracle at his creation, as at 
the production of the atomy of the primeval slime. He 
did not spring from the brain of Jove, like Minerva, with 
all his God-like qualities complete. Even the brief records 
of history carry us back to barbarism, and in the unknown 
period beyond, man becomes a skin-clad savage, scarcely 
superior to the animal his strategy eludes or destroys. 
The first indication of his presence is a broken flint, so 
rude, it was at first referred to accident; his dwelling was 
the natural fissures of the rocks, which he disputed with 
varying fortune with his brother animals. From that re- 
mote epoch, to which the foundation of the pyramids are 
as yesterday, two skulls have come down- to us, showing 
by their thick and massive structure, the brutal type of 
their possessors, who must have been lower than the low- 
est savages of the present. As the animal world advances, 
man is degraded, until the chasm said to exist between 
them vanishes, and the two inseparably blend. The old 
method of referring the intelligence exhibited by animals 
to instinct no longer finds supporters. It is admitted by 
those who have studied the subject most profoundly, that 
the mental powers of animals and of man are the same in 
kind, only differing in degree. Physically, man is unques- 
tionably an animal, being the archetype of the dominant 
class of animals. Thus the arm and hand of man is the type, 
on which the fore extremities of all animals are formed, 
and the same elements of bene and muscle appear in the 
post-like arm of the elephant, the paddle of the whale, the 
claw of the turtle, the fin of the fish, the wing of the bird, 
and by the loss of its typical elements, becomes finally re- 
duced in the lowest vertebrate being to a simple rod-like 
extremity. Thus may his other organs be traced, until 
lost in the lower species. His intellectual and moral fac- 
ulties can be traced in a similar manner. The distance 
between the intellect of Newton and that of the dog is im- 
measurably great, but the difference between him and the 
Bosjesman, who is unable to count four, is greater than 



A SYSTEM OF MORAL PHILOSOPHY. 31 

between the intelligence of the latter and the dog. The 
manifestation of intellect is determined by the brain, and 
the brain of the higher animals and man are identical in 
structure. Whatever we may hereafter find the functions 
of brain to be, we know its size and form indicate the 
thoughts which accompany it. Thus anatomy alone 
proves the inseparable union in organization between man 
and the animal. Even language has been employed both 
by Darwin and Wallace to strengthen this union, animals 
having signs and sounds to express their thoughts and 
emotions, and what are they but language ? 

Physically and mentally man is the culmination of the 
vast series of organic changes from the dawn of life. Or- 
gans faintly shadowed forth in them, or indifferently form- 
ed in him, are perfected, balanced and brought in harmony 
with the perfection of others. He thus is the type, after 
which the animal world is created, or is the perfection of 
their structure. 

MENTAL GROWTH. 

This survey of the realm of living beings presents us 
with the perfection of the physical forms of animals as well 
as of man. The lion, for instance, is no more perfect than 
its ancestors of the tertiary epoch. The elephant is not in 
advance of the elephant of the same period. These high 
forms have attained their completeness and are subject to 
little variation. The physical man has also reached per- 
fection. In ancient times he had done so, as is shown by 
the perfection of the marble models of Greece. There is 
every reason to suppose that the human form was as ex- 
quisitely moulded three thousand years ago in Greece, as 
it is under the highest civilization at present. 

With the acquisition of intellect, progress changed its ob- 
ject and direction. Previously acting on unresisting bodies, 
it has now found a directing power in intelligence. Ani- 
mals are even in their highest estate almost as resistless to 
the conditions which environ them as the elements. The 
same holds true of lowest man. He offers no resistance to 
change. When, however, he begins to understand the 
laws of the elements, he takes advantage of their power, 
and dictates to them. In exact ratio of his knowledge is 
he the master, not the slave. A new element is introduced 
into the method of evolution. Perfection of physical 
forms are reached, and progress is directed through the 



32 THE ETHICS OF SPIRITUALISM: 

channel of intelligence. A certain mental endowment is 
gained by animals, but their physical structure precludes 
any considerable attainment. The upright position, the 
dexterity of the hand, and still more, the balance of facul- 
ties and powers which obtain in man, are essential to his 
intellectual growth. Even were it possible for a tiger to 
become as intelligent as man, its organization would ren- 
der such endowment worthless. The hand of the inventor 
is as necessary as his intellectual faculties. An ox with 
the mind of La Place, in vain might seek to record its cal- 
culations ; aud though it should plan a Hoosac Tunnel, its 
hard hoofs could not execute the work. 

The question is asked, may not higher forms result from 
the plan of progress herein sketched ? If animals in the 
past, by constantly availing themselves of every change 
for the better, have reached their present status, will not 
improvement still continue, and may not races superior 
to man be expected? In those regions, unmolested by 
man, the process of change will continue ; but as he meets 
the requirements of his position, as in him is made per- 
fect expression of type, there can be no physical advance 
beyond him. If we study the structure of any individual 
animal, we readily perceive wherein important changes 
might be made for its improvement. Not so with man. 
His physical organization is complete, and although 
we find traces of organs once useful to lower being, 
but now atrophied, we find no partially developed 
organs, or indications of latent functions. Further- 
more, at this point where he gains physical perfec- 
tion, his intellect makes him master of Conditions. If 
he have an imperfect organ it is his brain, which now re- 
ceives the entire force of the elements of change, and 
shadows forth the most exalted intellectual attainments 
possible. The savage oflers slight resistence to the condi- 
tions which surround him. The Esquimaux build ice- 
houses to protect themselves, but in the struggle for exist- 
ence are overpowered by the climate, and as a race, are 
disappearing. The African is enervated and overpowered 
by the tropic heat; civilized man on the contrary, by his 
knowledge of architecture, clothing, fire and skill, over- 
comes climate. He carries the tropics to the poles, and the 
polar ice to the tropics. Not only does he set aside the 
order of progress in himself, he dictates to the animal 



A. SYSTEM OF MORAL PHILOSOPHY. 33 

world. He introduces domestic animals in place of the 
denizens of the wild, which he extirpates. These domes- 
tic species are the product of his whim and caprice, in 
which his ideas are expressed, as he, by study of the meth- 
ods of nature, has learned to substitute new methods of his 
own. These though few in kind, are innumerable in num- 
ber, and will ultimately displace the wild species from all 
the vast territory peopled by civilized races. 

By this rapid survey we have determined man's position 
at the apex of the pyramid of life, the crowning work of 
creative energy. We have observed the method by which 
his physical body has been broken like a fragment from 
the world of matter. The development of mind can be 
traced by a parallel course, and to continue the figure of 
speech, indicates the method by which man's spirit is 
broken, a fragment from the spiritual universe. 

8PIRIT. 

We now come to the consideration of the immortal man. 
Thus far our course has been with the Materialist, who 
will be pleased with our conclusions. Shall we say with 
Carl Vogt, " Mind is a secretion of the brain, as the bile is 
of the liver; and that as death restores the atoms of the 
body to the ocean of matter, mind ceases to be ?" Does in- 
telligence vanish, as the flame of the lamp when the oil is 
burned out ? " You expect in vain," says the Materialist, 
" the tones of music when the instrument is destroyed, or 
the hum of the bee after the insect has passed on its busy 
wings." 

The highest culture of all ages, and the instinctive 
yearnings of the soul contradict this conclusion. Ever it 
exclaims with the great Goethe: " The destruction of such 
high powers is something which can never, under any cir- 
cumstances, come in question," and we are prone to say 
with the shade of Anticlea, " when a man is dead, the flesh, 
and the bones are left to be consumed by the flames; but 
the soul flies away like a dream." 

More deeply are we impressed with that conclusion, 
when by a survey of the realm of life we find that the 
progressive labor of the ages is for his creation. He is 
the resultant of the vast series of evolution. The labor 
has been for his benefit, and whatever results have flowed 
to other beings, have been accidental to the main line of 
advancement. A plan is revealed, which, as previously 



34 THE ETHICS OF SPIRITUALISM: 

stated, is inherent in the constitution of the world, and must 
be inevitably followed. To stop short of man would be to 
render creative energy an abortion. Nothing is gained 
except the series be completed, and it is completed when 
man is reached. 

PROGRESS UNLIMITED. 

But we cannot limit this progress. Having reached its 
highest point in physical man, it seeks a new channel 
through his spiritual nature. I said that in the human 
form we observed no imperfectly fashioned organs, or illy 
executed functions prophesying greater perfection hereto, 
fore, but in the mental realm we do find this state of things. 
Compared even with his ideal, the man of profoundest 
thought, is a child. The possibilities of a God are his, 
and yet he actualizes scarcely the alphabet ! Nor is it pos- 
sible for the individual man in the short space allotted 
to mortal life to do more. Shall the race accomplish 
what is denied the individual ? The great stream of civil- 
ization shall onward, and each individual atom shall rise 
on the preceding ? 

Then what is the benefit or aim of this progress ? Is 
there anything gained by the mastodon taking the place 
of the saurian of the primeval slime, or man of the mas- 
todon ? If the production of mortal beings is the end, the 
process would be as perfect at one stage as another. We 
consider it perfect in proportion as the typical structure is 
attained, and that structure is one which most completely 
embodies the possibilities of the elements. Man physical- 
ly considered, is the nearest approximation to this result. 
He has in a measure become master of the forces which 
surround him, but who will say he has reached the limits 
of his capabilities in this direction? With the same ratio 
of progress for the next century, as in the past, he will 
have the most essential powers of nature under his con- 
trol. 

But this is for the race. What is for the individual ? He 
cares not if mankind a thousand years hence become as 
God's ; he asks what is my destiny ? The proposition I 
have to make is this: The great plan of animal life comes 
to fruition in physical man ; he is the result of countless 
millenniums of evolutions. As this progress evolves man, 
the same laws extend into a higher domain and evolve his 
spirit. 



A SYSTEM OF MORAL PHILOSOPHY. 35 

Unless this be so, creation is a failure, and the intermin- 
able beings which form its cycle, represent no purpose, or 
object gained. Unless the order be extended, and as a re- 
sult a portion become advanced to a new and higher plane, 
we have the spectacle of ceaseless activity without object 
or gain, which, even to our imperfect human understand- 
ing, is nowhere else met with in the bounds of nature. 

Most rigidly do I adhere to my primary proposition, 
that no force or energy whatever can exist without matter. 
If man have a spiritual existence, it must be individual- 
ized, and if so, must be formed of some kind ol matter, 
and be as amenable to the laws of its being, as the mortal 
man. 

I here freely admit that the material is wanting to bridge 
the existing gulf between matter and spirit, but it must be 
borne in mind how brief has been the period since investi- 
gation has been intelligently directed to this subject, and 
also the great difficulties in the way. A boundless field of 
research is here opened across the threshold of which none 
have yet passed, except those who have studied it from the 
immortal side. For the present then, my main argument 
rests on the perfect and satisfactory manner in which this 
theory accounts for all the diverse phenomena. I might 
bring the testimony of spiritual beings, but in this connec- 
tion I prefer to deal with the question in a purely scientific 
manner. 

As the mortal senses cannot recognize the matter or sub- 
stance of which the spirit-organism is composed, and as 
all idea of matter is derived from them, we cannot form a 
just conception of its qualities. We can know little more 
than that it must be most subtle in character. Many Spir- 
itualists teach that it is electricity and magnetism, forget- 
ting that these are only forces, and of themselves have no 
separate existence. The spirit must be formed of matter, 
most refined and sublimated, perhaps, but matter still. 

OBJECTIONS. 

We are here met with an objection, urged as conclusive. 
If spirits are material why can we not see them ? We can 
not see the atmosphere, and if we trusted to the eye alone, 
should never know that it exists. Whether a body is visi- 
ble or invisible depends on its relations to light. Prof. 
Grove most pertinentlv remarks : " The force emitted from 
the sun may take different characters at the surface of 



36 THE ETHICS OF SPIRITUALISM: 

every different planet, and require different organisms or 
senses for its appreciation. Myriads of organized beings 
may exist, imperceptible to our visions, even if we were 
among them, and we might be imperceptible to them." 

Why seek immortality outside of physical matter? 
Granting the existence of the unknown elements beyond 
the limits of hydrogen, the existence of which has been 
conjectured by many scientists, why should immortality 
be achieved by them more than by ordinary oxygen, car- 
bon and hydrogen, which enter into the mortal body? 
These questions lead to an investigation of what consti- 
tutes immortality. In the healthy organism the forces of 
renovation balance those of decay. As soon as a fibre or 
nerve cell, or bone particle is worn out, new material is 
ready to supply the waste. So rapid is this wonderful 
process of decay and renovation that all the soft tissues of 
the body are renewed, at least, every thirty days. Thus 
the body is restored twelve'times a year; and an individual 
at sixty years of age has had seven hundred and twenty 
different bodies. Could such balance of forces be preserv- 
ed, living forms would never perish ; an immortal lion, 
oak or pine would be as possible as an immortal man. 
But they cannot obtain it with the material of the physical 
world. Organic forms reach maturity only to feel the in- 
sidious mastery of decay. The absorbents become ob- 
structed with bone-forming material, and deposition going 
on in the bones they become hard, almost material. 
Through the important organs — as the heart, in its very 
valves on which life depends, bony atoms are deposited. 
The minute arteries thus obstructed, the muscles waste, 
contract and harden. The entire mechanism of compli- 
cated fibres, channels, cells and fluids becomes impaired, 
and at length fails altogether. It is not want of vitality; it 
is a necessity growing out of the elements of which they 
are formed. 

SPIRITUAL ELEMENTS. 

The necessity of ascending to higher elemental forms is 
thus made apparent, and the individualization in the spirit 
is effected by and through means of the mortal body. 
With a proper understanding of words, we may employ 
the terms, " matter " and " spirit," the latter meaning the 
subtile and ultimated elements which pervade and under- 
lie the physical world. From the former the physical 



A SYSTEM OF MORAL PHILOSOPHY. 37 

body is formed; from the latter the spiritual body. This 
dual development commences with the the dawn of being 
and is common to all living forms. The two mature to- 
gether; one pervading and being an exact copy of the 
other, and death is their final separation. The mortal 
body is the scaffold by which the immortal is created. 

Then do all animals possess spirits? Assuredly, for the 
realm of lite has one fixed order, but it by no means fol- 
lows that their spirits are immortal. Because the spirit 
exists after the death of the mortal body is not absolute 
evidence of eternal existence. As a certain advancement 
is essential for the manifestation of reason and moral in- 
telligence, so it is to the preservation of the organization 
through which that reason is manifested. The keystone is 
necessary for the security of the arch, which if not in 
place, falls in ruins as soon as the staging is removed. 

The spirit of the animal may be compared to an incom- 
pleted arch, which, when the body which supports it is re- 
moved, falls in fragments. But the spirit of man is like 
a perfect arch, standing firm after its support is taken 
away. 

But, as the animal merges through intermediate forms 
into man, and the infant knows less than the perfect animal, 
the line of demarkation between the perishable and imperish- 
able, is apparently, drawn with difficulty. Not so, however ; 
a certain degree of advancement is essential, beyond which 
immortality obtains. The line is not sharply drawn. A 
spirit is not necessarily immortal, but can become gradu- 
ally extinguished, after an indefinite time. As the atoms 
of the animal's body are absorbed by wind and wave, and 
wafted around the world, to be seized with avidity by other 
forms of life, so its spiritual portion is resolved like a cloud 
into the ocean of spiritual elements. 

After passing into what may be called the human king- 
dom, on the threshold where the lowest races blend with 
the brute, we find the line of mortality remorselessly de- 
termining the man from the animal. 

I shall consider, in conclusion, but one objection, which 
from its antiquity and apparent incontrovertibility, is the 
strongest possible to urge. It is drawn from the armory of 
metaphysical discussion, and has very often been employ- 
ed with crushing force. It is this: If man is immortal in 



38 THE ETHICS OF SPIRITUALISM: 

the future, must he not have been in the past? Can an im- 
mortal being have a beginning? 

I think this objection will readily be seen to rest on the 
old conception of spirit, and when applied to this theory 
to have no force. When the words " eternity " and " im- 
mortality " are used, the sense must, of necessity, be vague , 
as we can form no conception of either. If we admit 
ceaseless change as the order of nature, every change is 
wrought by the force of superior attractions, and we can 
imagine a state in which an aggregation of atoms are held 
by the highest forces possible to be brought to bear on 
them, and such an aggregation, although it had a begin- 
ning, because within itself all forces were satisfied, would 
be eternal. Such an aggregation of elements of most ex 
quisitely sublimated character we hold the spirit of man 
to be 

Studied in the light of this theory, creation becomes a 
continuous evolution from the earliest, spontaneously gen- 
erated forms of life, to man; and man becomes the means 
whereby the possibility of immortality is realized. With- 
out this result, creation is a failure, and man with his in- 
stinctive longings, his noble aspirations, his infinite possi- 
bilities, is the veriest sham, blotting the fair face of the 
world. 

Rapidly, and in barest outline have I sketched the prin- 
ciples of the Genesis and Evolution of Spirit, of necessi- 
ty dwelling more at length on the material side, and con- 
scientiously pointing at the provinces where future re- 
search must supply the deficient links. Yet this outline 
will make apparent the beautiful order of creation, 
and reveal the progressive steps from the atom to man, 
and to spirit, like another Jacob's ladder, from earth to 
heaven. As man is the fruition of this evolution, and its 
aim and purpose, so the evolution of an immortal spirit is 
the crowning glory of man. 

Again the line of progress changes, for with spirit, it 
can no longer str>e for the preservation and perfection of 
races, but for the individual. 

IMMORTALITY IS CONFERRED, AS THE HIGHEST AIM OF 
CREATIVE ENERGY. 

Immortality is conferred, as the nighest aim of creative 
energy, admitting of no mistakes. Man's spiritual state 
must surpass his mortal, which is its prototype; extending 



A SYSTEM OF MORAL PHILOSOPHY. 39 

and consummating the mortal life. Whether we die draw- 
ing our first living breath, or after a full century, has not 
the least influence on the final growth and attainments of 
the spirit, which embodies every law of progress. Wheth- 
er as a spirit — clad in flesh, or as a spirit in the angel 
spheres, man is amenable to the same laws. 

We can learn many lessons from this contemplation. 
By it we comprehend our duty to lower, and our relations 
to higher orders of intelligences. The brutes of the field, 
our ignoble brethren, all the forms of life beneath us, re- 
quire our kindness, love and sympathy ; the angels of light 
— our elder brothers, call forth our love and emulation. 
We are not ephemeral of a day, but companions of suns 
and worlds, and possessed of a proud consciousness that 
when the lofty mountain peaks have become valleys, and 
the earth passed away ; when the sun no longer shines, 
the stars of heaven are lost in night, our spiritual being 
will have but begun its never-ending course, 



CHAPTER III. 

THE LAW OF MORAL GOVERNMENT. 

We state the law of morality and of conscience to be, 
that the highest faculties should always control the con- 
duct of life. Each and every faculty of the mind has its 
own appropriate function and office to perform, and with- 
in its sphere of activity, is promotive of good, and con- 
ducive to happiness. Whenever any lower faculty tran- 
scends its sphere and encroaches on that of a higher, evil 
and unhappiness results. But how are we to determine 
the high from the low ? Are not all good, and for good, 
and as integral parts of the mind are they not all equal ? 
For the thorough comprehension of this subject which 
has become a confusion of conflicting theories, the forma- 
tion of the mind must be attentively studied. Then we 
shall be prepared to pronounce on the ascending degrees 
of higher or lower, and what can be eliminated from the 
mind and yet preserve its integrity: What faculties and 
functions man may lose and yet remain man. 



40 THE ETHICS OF SPIRITUALISM: 

SIMILARITY OP THE MORAL AND PHYSICAL WORLDS. 

Man as the crowning effort of the physical world, and a 
compend of the universe, reveals in his organization his 
kinship with its forces. He is the expansion of the germ 
prophesied in the beginning, as within the acorn resides 
the possibilities of the oak. If we ask what is the founda- 
tion of the physical world, without which it could not ex- 
ist, even as material ; what is its highest law, at first we 
might find it difficult to answer. We can approach the 
solution by a process of elimination. We shall have no 
difficulty in pronouncing the vegetable beneath the ani- 
mal, or the energies called vital above those of purely 
chemical affinity. Animals may be canceled in this equa- 
tion and the statement not affected They depend on the 
vegetable world, and cannot exist without it. 

The vital forces of vegetation, are a modification of 
chemical affinity, which lies directly beyond. This force 
aggregates like substances. Its manifestation depends 

ON COHESION, 

The indiscriminate attraction of atoms. Before there can 
be selection atoms must be brought together. Nebulous 
clouds, the atoms of which are dissipated by repulsion, 
have not cohesion. Their atoms are driven so wide asun- 
der, that they have not attraction for each other. But 
there is a force remaining after the cancellation of vi- 
tal, of affinity, of cohesion, and that force superior to all 
others is 

GRAVITATION. 

Without the tendency of bodies towards each other there 
could exist no systems of revolving worlds, nor would 
such systems have been formed in the beginning from the 
primal chaos. Drop gravitation, and matter ceases to ex- 
ist. Whatever else you may have, or not have, you must 
have this. There is nothing above, or more all-embracing. 
It embodies the mathematics and mechanics of nature. 
Life may be extinguished, selective affinity, and cohesion 
destroyed, yet this force will remain unchanged. As we 
cannot go beyond it, and it depends on no other, it must 
be the highest force in the physical world. It was first to 
manifest its influence in the vortices in which suns and 
systems were gestated from chaos. When the atoms re- 
pelled into most attenuated vapor, were drawn into each 



A SYSTEM OF MORAL PHILOSOPHY. 41 

other's sphere, cohesion and then chemical affinity were 
manifested. The latter made vegetable life possible, which 
in turn supported animal life. 

As the universe of matter has one principle superior to 
all others, on which its very existence depends, so man as an 
epitome of the universe has one principle or faculty which 
makes him man, and without which he is not man, but an 
animal. As we arrived at that principle of matter by 
analysis, we can in this pursue the same method. 

It is self-evident that all those faculties which he holds 
in common with animals, do not make him man. It is 
some quality which they do not possess, which confers 
that title of honor. 

The development of every child, begins at the same 
point with the animal. The first germs, have but one 
function, that of assimilating food. The first command is 
to grow. The next step is taken by the acquisition of or- 
gans of locomotion. It no longer waits for its food, it 
reaches after it. Then we see the dawn of mentality in the 
directing power applied to the locomotive organs, the only 
efforts of which are put forth in search of food. 

In man the first process is of growth, assimilation, and 
the mental faculties which are awakened by the gratifica- 
tion of the demands made by this process, and its co-re- 
lated functions, lie at the base of the brain and are called 
the appetites and passions. Related to these and in part 
springing from them are the desires, and above these the 
emotions. In order of growth, the latest in development 
are the intellectual and followed by that of the moral fac- 
ulties. That they are not essential to animal life is prov- 
ed by the fact that animals exist without them. The later 
development of moral consciousness proves that is not 
essential to intellectual life, though these two have kept 
an even and parallel course. Comparing man with the 
animal, we eliminate all faculties except 

REASON AS INTELLECTUAL AND MORAL CONSCIOUSNESS. 

They are to man what gravitation is to the physical 
world. It is unlimited by any other faculty, nor is it de- 
pendent for its manifestation on any other. Unlike the 
lower, it makes no prophesy of another faculty ; its prom- 
ise is of its own perfection. The appetites minister ex- 
clusively to the demands of the body, and performing 
which their task is finished. But if there is not something 



42 THE ETHICS OF SPIRITUALISM: 

more, nothing but animal life is attained. The body is nour- 
ished for something. There is a work for it to do. That 
work is the evolution of spirit and its mentality. On the 
appetites rests a group of desires, from the most selfish, to 
that which reaches into the future, for continued life, and 
the loves which are represented in the physical world by 
heat, radiating out from the individual to the family and 
the world. 

The body was made to serve the mind and not the mind 
the body. The Appetites were made to serve the Desires 
and Love, and not the Desires and Love to serve the Appe- 
tite. All below were made to serve those above. And 
lastly the Intellect was made to serve the moral Conscious- 
ness and not the moral Consciousness the Intellect. Here 
we grasp the true distinction between 

HIGH AND LOW. 

When a faculty is the foundation of another, it must be 
regarded as lower than that to which it administers. Thus 
the appetites that feed the body are lower than the facul- 
ties which arise out of the body being so fed. Reason 
which takes cognizance of perceptions and emotions must 
be superior to the faculties on which it sits in judgment. 
Spiritual reason, or moral consciousness, the essence of 
the spiritual perceptions must be highest of all. If you 
now ask what can a man not spare and yet remain man, 
the answer must be, Reason and Conscience * 

We now have a rule by which to determine the grade of 
the mental faculties. It is precisely the same as that by 
which the naturalist determines the grade of organic life. 
Whatever looks forward to the sustainance of something 
beyond, is lower than the organism it thus foreshadows. 
The faculties possessed by man, which distinguish him 
from the animal, are as superior to those which belong to 
the animal, as the hand is superior to the claw, formed of 
the same elements. 

SHALL WE BE NATURAL? 

As every faculty has a function to perform, else it would 
not exist, any more than a superfluous organ, the natural 
activity of all faculties is essential to well being. What 



*The reader will find further on that by Conscience we mean 
the highest form of Reason, or Spiritual Consciousness. We 
use the term to avoid circumlocution, but always with this 
meaning. 



A SYSTEM OF MORAL PHILOSOPHY. 43 

is this natural activity? It is activity within the sphere 
of each, to the point where the superior receive only bene- 
fit. The body being created for the mind, its appetites 
were given, for its proper growth and sustainance, and are 
for this end productive of good. But if they seek gratifi- 
cation beyond that sphere, they are destructive of the pur- 
pose of their being. We at once say this is unnatural and 
wrong. The idea of man is of a reasoning, moral being, 
and every faculty and function promises that result. 
Whatever interferes with growth in that direction is un- 
natural as it is wrong. 

Thus hunger is the demand of the body for food. To 
answer such demand is the first duty of being, as life itself 
depends on it. To partake of food, until its natural wants 
are appeased, and of such quality as reason dictates, is 
right, and is rewarded by a satisfaction which is happiness. 
When, however, we eat for the gratification of this appe- 
tite, when the body makes no demand, and of food del- 
eterious to its sustenance, we defeat its purpose, and 
bring pain and disease. The same is true of all other fac- 
ulties. Each has an appropriate sphere, in which it is 
useful, and productive of good. That sphere is bounded 
on one side by the body, on the other it reaches upward to 
the mental qualities which depend and grow out of it. 
The gormand destroys his intellect and his moral sensi- 
bilities by surfeit, while hunger should be limited to the 
proper wants of the body, which stimulate and do not in- 
terfere with mentality. The same is true of the Desires 
and Loves, in their relation to the Intellect. To present 
this subject in it3 broadest sense, as immortal spirits 
we have an infinite future of development before us. 
That development must come through the spiritual facul- 
ties. Hence the gratification of physical desires should 
only reach that point where they conduce to our spiritual 
welfare. Our progress has already begun. It dates at the 
beginning of being. The physical body is an accident of 
its earth-life, which will be cast aside at death. Its use 
and purpose is to bring the spirit in contact with the phys- 
ical world for its development. While this earth-side of 
our nature is of primal consequence, it sinks into utter in- 
significance when compared with the infinite life beyond. 
It should be conducted in strictest reference to future well 
being and happiness, and the pleasures of the moment 



44 THE ETHICS OF SPIRITUALISM: 

yield to those of the future; whatever is mortal to the 
immortal. 



CHAPTER IV 

THE APPETITES. 

The mental qualities are involuntary, or instinctive, and 
voluntary. The line of demarkation between these di- 
visions is not clearly defined. In the animal the involun- 
tary appear to form the whole mind ; in man, this sub- 
stratum, held in common, is more or less under the control 
of the will. 

In proportion as the voluntary faculties expand, the in- 
voluntary recede. The appetites belong to the involun- 
tary division, for though measurably controllable, in the 
end they escape the will. 

Those functions which arise out of, and are essential to 
the existence of man as a physical being, are called the 
Appetites. These have been classed with the Passions, or 
indiscriminately called by that name. We prefer to ap- 
ply to them a term which clearly expresses their relations 
to the body, and distinguishes them from the Passions 
which are essentially distinct. 

As the sustenance of the body depends on the Appe- 
tites, they are characterized by their periodical response 
to its needs. It their demands are not answered, they in- 
crease in intensity, until the Will is forced to yield. 

The Appetites are hunger, thirst, sleep, activity, rest, 
and sexual instinct. The desire for air, like that for wa- 
ter, may also be included. 

HUNGER. 

To exist requires the assimilation of food, and life is a 
ravenous maw insatiably demanding organizable material. 
Living beings are created hungry. Their first activity is 
in search of food. The bit of protoplasm, lowest form 
of organic life, assimilates and grows. It exists to as- 
similate and grow. The first articulate sound of new- 
born life is a cry for food. Life is a wasting force, and as 
it wastes, it must be fed. Throughout the sentient world 



A SYSTEM OF MORAL PHILOSOPHY. 45 

hunger is the cardinal force compelling activity. It is 
the ever-applied spur. As food is not held to the mouth, 
it must be sought, and the seeking is labor. Labor stim- 
ulates thought, and civilization grows out of the pangs of 
Hunger. "Were it not for this motive, idleness would 
never arise from its imbecility. The fact that man has re- 
garded labor as a curse bestowed for sin, proves how in- 
herently he prefers, idleness broken only by spasmodic 
activity. He embodied this necessity in the myth of " The 
Fall," and thus accounted for the disagreeable burden of 
gaining bread by the sweat of his brow. 

In the tropics nature spoils man by her bounty. Con- 
tinued supply of food in wasteful abundance, makes fore- 
thought useless, and labor unnecessary. Man enervated 
by the climate, vegetates under the palm and orange, and 
never arises above his childhood. 

In the North he is crushed by the too stern necessities 
of the climate. Hunger is the one motive of the Esqui- 
maux which absorbs all others, and so difficult to answer, 
nothing remains. 

ONLY IN A NARROW BELT OP THE TEMPERATE ZONE, ARE 
THE ANTAGONISTIC FORCES SO BALANCED THAT MAN CAN 
ATTAIN PERFECTION. 

It is only there that the demands are sufficiently great 
to stimulate, yet not exhaust the vital energies, leaving £ 
surplus for other and higher uses. On the desire for var- 
ious articles of food commerce in a great measure de- 
pends, to gratify which its ships navigate the farthest seas. 

The West is supplied with the spices of the East, and 
the East with the corn of the West. The North partakes 
of the fruits of the tropics, and the tropics of the North. 
Such a diet formed of the mixed products of all climes, is 
not only a result of commerce, it is essential to high civil- 
ization. A simple diet, like that of the rice, for example, 
is, incapable of supporting complex mental manifest- 
ations, such as are shown in the nations of Europe or in 
America. 

Hunger has not only sent the countless sails of commerce 
around the world, it has stimulated invention, and the 
growing of food, is only equaled to its preparation which 
has become a science as well as an art. The early man, 
ate the seeds of grasses and weeds, uncooked; masticated 
the hard acorn, and devoured the warm raw flesh. He 



46 THE ETHICS OF SPIRITUALISM: 

learned to soften and make more palatable the seeds, and 
broil the flesh with fire. By culture the small seeded 
grass became golden grain, filled to the brim with life- 
yielding elements. The force used to masticate and di- 
gest was relieved by the art of cooking, and the surplus 
thus gained was an endowment of his intellect. 

THUS KNOWLEDGE, AND MORALITY, ARE BASED ON 
HUNGER. 

The starving man knows nothing but his insatiate de- 
sire for food. This desire, when natural, that is when un- 
fettered or influenced by other motives, is a true criterion 
of its own needs, and a trusty guide in the selection and 
quantity of food. When stimulated with unnatural foods 
it fails and becomes treacherous. 

THE NATURAL ACTIVITY OP AN APPETITE YIELDS 
HAPPINESS. 

To insure the proper attention to the demand for food, 
it is made imperative, and cumulative, and the sense of 
taste is bestowed not only for discrimination, but pleas- 
ure. But the sense of taste, does not pall the moment 
Hunger is satisfied, and hence we eat after the necessity is 
supplied, or for the single purpose of pleasing the palate 
when no necessity exists. As Hunger is the test of the 
amount of food which can be digested and assimilated, 
the energy of , the digestive organs, is not sufficient to 
meet this extra demand; indigestion and imperfect as- 
similation breed disease. 

As life itself, with all its manifestations depends on the 
food we eat, the importance of the quality and quantity 
of that food will be seen to be of primary importance. 
Health is the cardinal requisite of a perfect life, and health 
depends on food. 

Thus we perceive that Hunger, when answered by ap- 
propriate food, is a source of happiness. Its function is 
to supply the waste of the body. If it do more, transcend, 
ing its sphere, and the appetite gratified for its own sake, 
misery is the sure result. 

THIRST. 

Nearly eighty per cent, of the body is water, which is 
an essential element for the manifestation of life. To sup 
ply the waste of this through secretions, excretions, and 
chemical changes, thirst is given. It demands water, 
and no effort of the will can conquer its imperitive voice. 



A SYSTEM OF MORAL PHILOSOPHY. 47 

It demands water, and if any other draught, it is through 
the imposition of habit. The difference between a habit 
and a natural demand, is that the latter is for something 
inherently necessary for the support of the organism, 
while the former is for something which has of it- 
self created the desire. The desire for water is not 
a habit, but a necessity of being, while the desire for 
alcoholic drinks is a habit, because such beverages have 
caused the peculiar changes in the system which call for 
these beverages instead of water. 

The same is true of tobacco, opium, etc., the use of 
which leads to the habit. They all exhilarate for a time, 
to be followed by a corresponding depression, from which 
the nerves cannot be rallied except by a new indulgence 
They induce a radical change in the system, which is felt 
in the intellectual and moral perceptions. 

The feverish antagonism of our civilization is promo- 
tive of stimulation, as the flagging racer is urged onward 
by the spur, and the over-working of the masses also cre- 
ates a desire for unnatural drinks and food. The weary 
laborer finds momentary pleasure in alcohol, tobacco, 
opium, coffee or tea, and resorts to their use. Nature re- 
quires simply rest, that she may recuperate, but there is 
not time to rest. The pleasure of years is sacrificed to 
that of a moment. The stream of life is changed in its 
course and the appetite is no longer to be trusted. 

HABITS. 

When such habits are thoroughly formed, it becomes 
difficult, if not impossible to break from them, because 
there is an organic change corresponding, which 
places it in relation to the habit the body naturally holds 
to an appetite. Thus the habit of drinking alcoholic bev- 
erages once established, every portion of the body becomes 
adjusted to the presence of alcohol. The victim may fully 
comprehend his situation, and with his whole will strive 
against it. In some instances the will may be strong 
enough to control the desires until the natural action is 
established; in others it will fail. The artificial state, cries 
for alcohol, just as the natural cries for water, and in the 
same manner goes on increasing in urgency. The with- 
drawing of each particle of alcohol increases this demand 
until the will is over-borne. 



48 THE ETHICS OF SPIRITUALISM: 

TEMPERANCE. 

The advocates of temperance should consider that in- 
temperance has two relations, to the mind and the body, 
and not trust exclusively as they do to mental influence. 
It is a disease, and should be treated as such. The body 
should be purified and sustained by healthful diet, and 
tonics that take the place of alcohol, until a natural ac- 
tion is established. Then appeals to the Will, and moral- 
ity, will be beneficial in preserving the new order. 

More than all men is the inebriate made the victim of 
false views of mental and moral philosophy. It is said he 
knows better, and can reform if he would. He may have 
inherited a constitutional tendency craving alcohol more 
insatiately than others crave water, or ignorantly he may 
have induced such a state. Is he to be blamed ? Rather 
should he receive unmeasured pity ? 

By over-indulgence the Appetites defeat their end which 
is happiness. Whenever they are followed for their own 
sakes,they invade the province of higher faculties, and not 
only is the result ruinous to those faculties, but to the Ap- 
petites themselves. The pleasure of eating, bestowed by 
hunger is changed to disgust by over-indulgence, and dys- 
pepsia, gout, and a thousand ills and pains follow. 

A true system of morals must begin with diet, and by 
that highest law we can regulate our conduct as regards 
our food. As hunger was given to compel attention to 
physical waste, when that is met it is sufficient; further is 
not desirable as opposed to physical well-being and men- 
tal growth? 

ACTIVITY AND REST. 

These are mutually complementary. After activity, 
there is a requisition for rest, which becomes more and 
more imperative, and after the system has recuperated by 
rest, activity becomes equally essential. The mutual play 
of these is best seen in childhood. 

SLEEP. 

The perfection of rest is sleep. It is then that the re- 
building processes are most active. The worn tissues are 
repaired and the waste excreted. The day is the season of 
activity, the negative night of repose. The magnetic state 
of the earth is represented by that of man. How much 
rest, how much action, how much sleep ? These questions 
are answered bv the natural demands of the system. 



A SYSTEM OF MORAL PHILOSOPHY. 49 

Sleep is for the purpose of restoring lost energy, but if 
prolonged it may leave too little time for the use of what 
is gained. Activity, may overreach itself and destroy the 
organism on which it depends. 

THE SEXUAL IMPULSE 

has for its sole end the perpetuation of species. That this 
function be unfailingly performed, and not obstructed, it 
is impelled by physical pleasures as in the case of hunger 
and thirst, and made cumulative in energy. What in 
brutes is a blind instinctive impulse, in man becomes sub- 
limated and joined with the highest and purest impulses. 
We shall again revert to this subject when we consider 
the social relations, but here in this preliminary discus- 
sion of the motives which actuate man, what rule have we 
as a trusty guide ? It is the same we applied to the other 
Appetites. Having ascertained their true sphere ; the pur- 
pose they have in view, and object, the natural accom- 
plishment of that purpose, is the right, and conducive of 
the greatest happiness. If then this be the end of the sex- 
ual impulse, having fulfilled it, nothing more is required 
of it, and if gratified for itself alone, it encroaches on the 
province of higher faculties, to which the energies it wan- 
tonly wastes most justly belong. 

Unrestrained, unguided, it is the cause of the most ter- 
rible crimes, and from it flows a great share of the misery 
and degradation of the world. The force which it exerts 
is drawn away from the intellect and morals, and flows 
through the channels of the Passions, all of which are in- 
tensified. To eat and multiply is the end of animal being, 
and when man yields to the same impulses he becomes an 
animal, more debased and brutal in proportion as his en- 
slaved intellect furnishes the means. 

DEPLORABLE IGNORANCE. 

In no department of the science of man does such la- 
mentable ignorance prevail as in this, which is considered 
impolite a ad of too delicate a nature to mention. Yet the 
well-being of the present, and of the numberless genera- 
tions of the future, depend on its proper understanding. 
When we consider the degradation, disease, misery, and 
spiritual death, which follows the uncontrolled Appetite, 
the necessity of knowledge is convincingly shown. The 
simoon, withering, blasting, is not more terrible, than the 
life of debauch, which blights every pure and noble aspi- 



50 THE ETHICS OF SPIRITUALISM: 

ration, brands the face with the mark of shame, fills the 
body with arrows of pain, and destroys the spirit. Pleas- 
ure in its lowest sphere defeats itself by its own selfish- 
ness. The fire that gently warmed has burned the dwell- 
ing, and ashes only remain. 

What in itself is pure becomes the cesspool of abomina- 
tion, a Pandora's box out of which unmentionable suffer- 
ings flow in never-ending streams. To arrest the cause of 
misery, man must be educated in the laws of his nature, 
and impressed with the necessity of obedience. He must 
learn that to fulfill the law is the supreme good. 

It is better that the appetites be controlled through 
fear than not at all. Better that punishment frighten than 
reckless indulgence. Hence the force of public opinion, 
religious influences, or legislation, are better than license. 
But these are only expedients to prepare the way for 
self-government, which is based on knowledge, and em- 
inates from the superior faculties. 

THE RULE WE HAVE GIVEN 

as applicable to all the Appetites, when comprehended and 
applied, leaves these builders each its sphere of activity? 
restricted and clearly defined. Unrestrained in the ani- 
mal, they are self-satisfying and work no mischief, for 
the animal has no higher end than their gratification, and 
urged by no conflicting impulses is held true to the laws 
of its being. Man has higher purposes, and whenever the 
Appetites oppose these purposes or conflict with their per- 
fect expression, they have transcended their sphere, and 
there should be no doubt as to the right, or the course 
from which the greatest good may be expected. 



A. SYSTEM OF MORAL PHILOSOPHY. 51 

CHAPTER V. 

SELFISH PROPENSITIES. 

These are love of life, combativeness, destructiveness, 
secretiveness, love of self, love of wealth, and cautious- 
ness. They are held in common with the animal world. 
The fierce onslaught of the tiger illustrates combative- 
ness and destructiveness; the squirrel lays by a hoard 
of food like a miser; the fox is secretive; the 
hare is cautious; the peacock is vain of approba- 
tion; all are selfish, and love existence. From the 
combination of these passions arise the composite known 
as pride, envy, jealousy, malice, hatred, resentment, false- 
hood and deceit. The passions are necessary to unite the 
spiritual with the physical. They are the driving power, 
which enables the spirit to actualize in the physical world 
its ideal. In this sphere they result in good and happi- 
ness. 

The love of life is conspicuous throughout the ranks of 
sentient beings. The preservation of existence, for its 
own sake, calls into action the play of all their faculties. 
Though suffering the pangs of most unbearable pain, and 
life is an excessive burden through disease or want, yet 
death is regarded with unspeakable aversion. Life is 
sweet, under the most unfavorable conditions. The crimi- 
nal prefers the perpetual dungeon to its cessation. In an- 
imals it is pure in its expression, for they can know noth- 
ing of death, and they live for the sake of living. But 
man may regard death either as cessation of life, or as the 
gateway to immortality. The latter idea is the perfect 
fruitage of this propensity. To him the desire is intensi- 
fied by his knowledge of death. Human life becomes 
sacred and surrounded by the strongest safeguards of law. 
To take it is the capital crime, transcending all others. 

Though life be a good of greatest value, when its preser- 
vation is gained through dishonor it is at too great cost. 
Here the superlative qualities of man assert his humanity. 
The animal will blindly risk its life in defense of itself or 
offspring, but man, fully knowing the consequences, risks 
his life for an ideal which perhaps has no relation to him- 
self. The grandest examples of history are the exaltation 



52 THE ETHICS OF SPIRITUALISM: 

of man above selfiishness, where he lays down his life (or 
principle. The patriot dj r ing for his country, the martyr 
for the truth, are never forgotten by admiring generations. 
The story of Thermopylae is ever new, the calm decision 
of Polycarp and Socrates is the theme of undying song. 
We feel that the men who willingly give their all for their 
highest convictions of right and duty, have escaped the 
motives of ordinary mortals, and allied themselves to the 
Supreme. 

If it be better to suffer martyrdom than live dishonored, 
is it not better when already dishonored to escape by self- 
inflicted death. In other words, have we a right over our 
lives ? Life being for its uses, and as no use can come of 
suicide, we would by the latter defeat its purpose. If we 
do not destroy life, but only the body, we would gain 
nothing, and would lose the essential training of the exist- 
ence from which we escaped. Overborne by burdens and 
duties, we selfishly cast them on others. The patriot and 
martyr die for others, but the suicide dies for himself; 
while they are actuated by the loftiest motives, he is by 
the most ignoble; they die in strength, he in weakness. 

Man has no right over his own life, for he is part of the 
social body, to which he owes allegiance, and he is not to 
judge when the circumstances environing him warrant 
the step. True courage meets and grapples with fate, and 
if defeated dies in harness. The Roman who casts himself 
on his sword was educated into a wrong conception of 
life and its duties. That we have life shows that we 
should maintain it in its integrity. The desire for exis- 
tence is not only a product of health, but is a leading cause 
in its maintenance — when we lose the desire to live, our 
earthly bodies are nearly fallen from our spirits, and we 
soon depart. 

It is right to love life — not for its own sake, but for its 
highest object— which that love may never overstep. Thus, 
while an animal flees from danger and is praised for so 
doing, having neither honor or principle to maintain, a 
man who deserted his post of duty would be execrated 
and despised, because his love of life is dominated by su- 
perior motives — "Though you tear my limbs asunder, 
throw me into the den of wild beasts, or give my body to 
the flames, I will never deny what my conscience tells me 
is the truth," grandly declares the martyr in the presence 



A SYSTEM OF MORAL PHILOSOPHY. 53 

of death, -when the spirit is exulted above the plane of 
physical life. 

COMBATIVENESS AND DESTRUCTIVENESS. 

The antagonistic and destroying propensities when al- 
lied with love of property, and the appetites, are the cause 
of crime. In savage man, and in that sub-stratum pre- 
sent in the most polished civilization, the propensities pre- 
dominate, and this condition is known as human depravi- 
ty. It, however, is not total depravity. Man in his low- 
est estate never reaches that depth. If there be a totally 
depraved being, it is one without moral or intellectual 
faculties, in other words a brute, but we cannot say that 
they are depraved, for they have not fallen from a higher 
plane, and they are true to their constitution. Only man 
who is actuated by two motives, a higher and a lower, by 
yielding to the lower can become depraved. That he ad- 
vances out of this lower to a higher plane proves that he 
is not totally bad or depraved; proves that he has the 
germs of goodness within him, and that he naturally in- 
clines in that direction. 

There are obstacles to be surmounted, difficulties to be 
combated, burdens to be borne in this physical life, and 
these propensities have a wide field. Of themselves they 
are ferocious and terrible. They strew the battle-field with 
the dead, and darken the heavens with the smoke of ruin- 
ed cities. Combined with reason, they grapple with the 
forces of nature, tame the lightnings and harness fire 
with bands of steal, to ship and car. The brute elements 
are compelled to toil. 

At first man was alone and defenseless in the wilderness. 
The forest must be felled, the wild beasts destroyed. He 
was surrounded by destruction, and his life was one of in- 
cessant combat. To endure this struggle his propensities 
were predominant. He would have been sadly defeated 
had they not been. When the wild beasts were destroyed, 
he found in man himself a more subtle and*invincible foe. 
War first caused by the propensities, stimulated the intel- 
lect until it at last conquered them, and thus removed the 
principal source of war. 

LOVE OF PROPERTY. 

" Take not heed for the morrow," can never be actual- 
ized in this life. It is saying we should not have fore- 
thought, which is as impossible, as undesirable. Proper- 



54 THE ETHICS OF SPIRITUALISM: 

ty is the result of labor, and a reserved force, which we 
can use, long after the labor has been expended. Proper- 
ty is capital which is concrete labor, without which, ab- 
ject poverty would prevail, and advancement would be 
impossible. It is essential to human welfare that there be 
constant accretion to wealth, that labor shall accumulate 
more than is required to sustain it. The squirrel teaches 
this lesson, for as nuts do not last the whole year, when 
they are plenty it gathers for the winter. The bee fills its 
hive when the flowers bloom, against the time when 
there are no flowers. Next to the love of life is the love 
of the means of sustaining it. This is the legitimate func- 
tion of this propensity, and is entirely praiseworthy. 

How much it shall grasp, and under what circumstances 
must be determined by the spiritual faculties. If a hive 
of bees should gather all the honey for many miles, and 
fill their comb with a thousand times more than they want 
to preserve them through the winter, we would say they 
grasped too much. Especially if by so doing many other 
swarms were unable to secure any, and hence were starved. 
The wealth of the world is so limited that when any one 
grasps at more than is necessary, others are robbed of their 
dues. Avarice is unrestrained desire for wealth, and in 
its selfishness is utterly debasing. The miser is the mock 
of humanity for making wealth the end, he defeats the ob- 
ject of wealth which is its uses. 

To gain wealth that it may be employed in works of be- 
nevolence, charity, or culture, is as noble, as hoarding is 
ignoble. Avarice is purely selfish. Its greed has no ref- 
erence to the good or rights of others. It knows no law 
but its own insatiate desire. Entering into government 
it legislates for its own advantage, seizing every oppor- 
tunity to grasp and retain. If wealth be the result of la- 
bor, no statement can be more self-evident, than that the 
laborer has the right to the products of his labor, and that 
no one has a right to what he has not earned. Property 
acquired by fraud, deception, or in any way without a 
just equivalent, is not held by right. And furthermore, 
the devotion of a portion of such ill-gotten gain, to worthy 
purposes does not right the wrong. 

If, then, wealth be acquired, it must be for the noble 
uses it will subserve, and not by the sacrifice of the high- 



A SYSTEM OF MORAL PHILOSOPHY. 55 

er sentiments. It must be gained honorably, and used 
honorably. 

In America, circumstances have awakened this pro- 
pensity into unparalleled activity, and money is the god of 
the masses. As money has power to purchase almost 
everything the mind can desire — it is sought with absorb- 
ing eagerness. Blinded by the glitter of wealth, the means 
of its acquisition are not questioned. Sharp bargains, 
usurious interests, remorselessly collected rents, the dark 
ways of trade, the deception of ignorance, are not regard- 
ed as altogether dishonorable, and are winked at by society. 
Success is measured by money-getting. Get money first, 
get money last, and by all means get money is the watch- 
word of the times. It is forgotten that it can be purchased 
at too great cost, and always is when the least sentiment 
of right and justice, honor or integrity is disregarded. 

SELF-LOYE. 

Self-love, or self-esteem, is allied to the love of power, 
and of the respect of others. The analysis of this group 
is difficult and of little practical importance in relation to 
our discussion. 

Self-love is essential to self-preservation, and w T hen 
rightly directed, is a strong ally of justice. The love of 
self then prevents any act which is ignoble or wrong. 
Alone this propensity becomes selfishness, one of the most 
contemptible in human nature. It is the antipode of spir- 
ituality. The selfish man destroys by his selfishness, the 
pleasures he might receive through the higher faculties. 
The disappearance of self-love, in love for others, has al- 
ways been held as angelic, and selfishness as utterly at 
variance with ideal character. Its suppression, at least in 
appearance, has been the aim of polite culture and refine- 
ment, and its presence is stigmatized and scorned, even 
most bitterly by the selfish themselves. 

It is natural and right for man to love power. It is a 
function of the Will, for to will presupposes the power of 
willing. Man delights in the control of matter by mind, 
the obedience of the elements to his will. This is the le- 
gitimate sphere of this propensity. His selfishness en- 
slaves others, and ignoring right and justice, he becomes 
a tyrant. Out of this love of power, blindly directed, has 
grown the governments of the world, and their kaleidoscop- 
ic changes which make the sum of history. Love of power 



56 THE ETHICS OF SPIRITUALISM: 

and ambition are the motives of the conqueror, like Alex- 
ander, or Napoleon, who count nothing worthy unless 
possessed by themselves, and are infatuated by praise, 
which men call glory. Over the smoking battle-field they 
force their way, forgetting that every groan and pang of 
pain is recorded against them in the black page of their 
future. Of the millions who have made ambition and 
love of glory the end of their lives, a breath will name 
those who have succeeded in gaining mention in history. 
Far more have reached renown through quiet adhesion to 
right, and unswerving justice. The hero-worshiping age 
is of the past, with its dead a;ods and broken shrines. 

It will be seen from the foregoing that the propensities 
are essential to man's well-being, and in their true sphere, 
pure and right. That sphere is assigned by their position. 
As they are superior to the Appetites, and inferior to the 
intellectual and moral nature, their sphere is tor purest 
and truest manifestation of the latter. Whenever they ob- 
struct or distort, they fail in their functions. They are for 
the spiritual nature, not the spiritual nature for them. 

The man who in old age says life is vanity, pronounces 
his own sentence. He plainly says that he has not been 
actuated by the proper motives, that he has been the slave 
of his Appetites and Propensities. For life should be like 
the snow-ball rolling forward to gather to itself and grow 
round, large and complete. If it shrivels and shrinks with 
advancing age, it is because of wrong living. The indi- 
vidual who has no higher purpose than worldly pleasure* 
when the body on which these depend fails, has nothing 
on which to lean; the moral consciousness is idiotic; the 
dwarfed spirit goes down to the grave, pitiably moaning, 
with incoherent utterances. Most deplorable of all spec, 
tacles presented in the world, is a spirit inherently glori- 
ous, and capable of infinite achievement, thus enslaved by 
desires, sinking below the horizon of earth-life in black 
clouds of despair. What the ages of immortal life has in 
store for that spirit, may relieve the sad picture, which 
has supported the belief in inherent depravity, and eternal 
punishment. In what contrast stands the examples of 
those who have cultivated the intellect and morals, and by 
them regulated their lives. As of these Humboldt furnish- 
es the most conspicuous illustration. Retaining his mental 
powers in all their vigor until the hour of his death when 



A SYSTEM OF MORAL PHILOSOPHY. 57 

he departed, saying : "How grand the sunlight, it seems 
to beckon earth to heaven," prophetic of the spiritual light 
so soon to break on his existence. 

All this side of man's nature which he holds in common 
with animals and relates exclusively to the body, decaj's 
with it. In health and maturity they make the ordinary 
every-day character, and the man passes among his fel- 
lows as capable. But his capacity rests almost exclusive- 
ly on this physical life. The spiritual side receives little 
attention and is more susceptible and active in childhood 
than at three score and ten. It follows that when the earth- 
side decays, the man is less than a child. He "loses his 
mind," and enters his second childhood. This is not a 
necessity. It is a result of giving life over to earthly pur- 
suits, at the expense of the spirit. When the mind is 
rightly cultivated, and a just harmony between it and the 
body preserved, it remains growing in vigor with age, and 
at death is not even in appearance like a lamp extinguish- 
ed. Perhaps in the life beyond, the errors of this will be 
righted, and, freed from the weight of physical necessities, 
the spirit will reach an ideal of which we cannot dream, 
but even then will the primary lost remain unrestored. 



CHAPTER VI. 



LOYE. 

We enter a new realm. That of the animal is rapidly 
disappearing, and a new motive becomes apparent. This 
motive is Love, the antipode of selfishness, holding the re- 
lation to the spirit that heat and magnetism does to the 
physical world, and their type and correspondence. All 
that we have hitherto considered, has related to the exist- 
ence of the individual; has been drawing towards self for 
the individual's exclusive benefit. We now pass the lim- 
itation of these lower propensities, and find the exact re- 
verse, a flowing out. Love in the wide definition of that 
word, flows out from the mind, in a continuous tide as the 
warmth of the sun flows unceasingly. When combined 



58 THE ETHICS OF SPIRITUALISM: 

with the Appetites, it presents its lowest manifestation in 
conjugal affinity; arises to affection for its offspring; 
friendship, and ultimates in the perfect benevolence which 
embraces not only man, but all forms of sentient life. Full 
of truth is the expression, " God is love," meaning that 
the foundation of all things is this power. Benevolence 
has been made to cover this wide field, and Love one of its 
special manifestations, but such a classification is confus- 
ing and is entirely arbitrary. Love is always benevolent. 
It always seeks the good of others. It hoards not for itself. 
It is self-forgetful, and self-denying. From it flows the so- 
called virtues, gentle affections, and humane emotions. 

Gratitude which makes us thankful for the bestowed fa- 
vors, and desirous of rendering the same to others; Mercy 
which overlooks offenses; Pity which feels for the dis- 
tressed; Humility which questions our abilities and worth, 
and yields the first place toothers, are outgrowths of Love. 
To it belongs Justice, the sense of merited reward and pun- 
ishment, the absolute giving to each and all their deserts, 
and the sense of the sacredness of truth. In the trusting- 
ness of Love arises faith, the reliance on the testimony of 
others, which, unsupported by the Intellect, becomes cre- 
dulity, and fosters superstition, maintains bigotry, and de- 
fies knowledge. 

Love is the social element, and nature has so exquisite- 
ly organized man that he is surrounded by an atmosphere 
through and by which its attractions and repulsions are 
expressed. As animals are drawn together in flocks and 
herds, men unite in social life. Half the joys of existence 
flow from the amenities of friendship. To be true, it must 
be founded on similarity of soul, and be free from selfish- 
ness. To use one's friends for selfish purposes, is to lose 
them. The attachments formed on the high-lands where 
self-enters not are only lasting. 

We may think, and no second being need enter the cur- 
rent of our thoughts, for our ideas may be purely abstract. 
We cannot love, or feel any of the innumerable changing 
sensations which it includes without an objective person- 
ality — Justice, Mercy, Benevolence, Charity, Pity, Devoted- 
ness, go outside of ourselves. 

It is claimed that all these conceptions have grown up 
out of experience. That man knew nothing of them, until 
he learned by observation that honesty, justice, charity 



A SYSTEM OF MORAL PHILOSOPHY. 59 

were the best policy. He trimmed his course by expedien- 
cy, until thereby, there grew up in his mind a sense of abso- 
lute Right, Justice, Benevolence, and the other virtues. 
This is simply referring to the Intellect the promptings of 
Love, and then declaring the Intellect itself to be an effect of 
long accumulating forces. This, however, does not affect 
our argument. Whatever may be the cause of mind, or 
however the mental manifestations may be classified, the 
Virtues have a distinct place, nor can it be successfully 
shown that they are resultants of experience, and hence 
entirely selfish in their inception. We cannot believe that 
these virtues, which in their perfection make man angelic, 
began in utter selfishness: that the experience of the 
inconvenience of falsehood, taught man truthfulness, 
when he had no sense of what truthfulness was, is contra- 
dictory. Light could never be known were it not for the 
receiving eye, nor could truth be known unless there was 
a receptive faculty of truth in man's nature. We believe 
that because there was light in the world, the living be- 
ings it evoked, were modified by its rays ; that the diffused 
nerve tissue, equally sensitive, became more sensitive in 
some one point, and from this starting point, growth pro- 
ceeded until our eye was beaten out of living matter by 
the waves of light. So the principles of truth and justice 
are comprehended by man, because he embodies the es- 
sence of these virtues. 

Cunning, fraud, deception, perfidy are tolerated in the 
animal because they do not conflict with the purposes of 
its life. In fact they are essential to its existence. They 
do not defeat higher purposes, for it has none. Man, 
however, has somewhat more than existence to strive for. 
Its preservation is undesirable when united with dis- 
honor and falsehood. The immortal spirit claims mas- 
tery over the flesh, and scorns its limitations and degra- 
dation. 

Granting Justice, Benevolence, etc., are products of ac- 
cumulated observation we must at once allow that they 
have become factors of the mind, a part of the mind and 
the argument again resolves itself into its consideration 
as a unity. 

The theory of evolution leads directly to this conclu- 
sion. Organs grow into exquisite form after a given type, 
by the accumulation of advantages, so faculties of the 



60 THE ETHICS OF SPIRITUALISM: 

mind increase by the accretion of observations. As the 
perfecting of physical organs tends to unitize the being, 
so the perfecting of mental qualities unitizes the mind. 
As the foundation of physical man is laid in the 
interminable series of forms beneath him, so is the 
Spiritual. Because he is a spirit, his mind reaches 
into and grasps spiritual" truths. This gives him a 
tendency towards virtue, and repugnance to vice. That 
man has such tendency is proved by history. Had 
he not had, there could have been no progress, more 
than in the ox. The virtues are a part of his organization 
and as such impel him in their pursuit. He loves to be 
good and to do good, and countless examples of the oppo- 
site do not invalidate this claim. A whole race of people 
inclined to evil without tendency to the good, would never 
become good, nor would an individual ever do a good act. 
Nor can we escape this conclusion by saying that from 
time to time, individuals far better than the average, arise 
and teach their higher truths. Nor by claiming that as 
man is incapable himself of llie discovery of moral truth, 
he must have received and has received a revelation. If 
such perception is not in human nature no individual can 
advance sufficiently to acquire it, nor can it receeive a 
revelation, more than a sightless person can the beauties 
of light. 

The fact revealed in colossal proportions by the interm- 
inable pages of history, that man has advanced in moral- 
ity, proves that he has within himself the germinal power 
of growth in that direction. 

As will be discussed at length hereafter, this perception 
is of the Reason and its higher expression in Conscience. 
The first of these qualities, the one which often gives name, 
and characterizes the group is 

BENEVOLENCE. 

It is the antipode of selfishness. Its office and delight is 
to bestow. It pictures the Infinite on a throne, from which 
as light from a central sun uninterruptedly flows boundless 
streams of beneficence. Uncontrolled, it is like the shower 
that falls alike on the just and unjust; the parched desert 
and the flood Its manifestation, even thus indiscriminate, 
has a charm, for it shows how far removed human ac- 
tions are towards the spiritual, the unselfish, and such ac- 
tions are always beautiful, however undeserving the object 



A SYSTEM OF MORAL PHILOSOPHY. 61 

of their bestowal. Better to suffer ten impositions than 
turn one needy away, is a proverb growing out of this 
love. The public charities which have grown out of this 
faculty are productive of great individual good, but it has 
been questioned if they are of any real benefit to the 
community. They can only reach a small fraction of 
want and wretchedness, and it is thought better to devise 
some means whereby all may be elevated from degrada- 
tion. Yet as the means have not been devised, and appar- 
ently very remote, we shall not soon escape the demands 
on our charity. 

This, however, is only a lower form of Benevolence. 
Its higher sphere of activity blends into the qualities bet- 
ter expressed by Love; that love which exists for its own 
sake. In its ideal expression, it is absolute devotion to its 
object, not for any hope of reward, or any benefit to self 
whatever, but from a spontaneous desire to promote the 
happiness of others. 

In animals we often see the affections exhibited in great 
strength; the conjugal, parental, and fraternal instincts 
banding herds and flocks together. These are, how- 
ever, momentary and when the physical necessities or 
occasions pass, they separate. It is interesting to observe 
this dim beginning, and by it we learn the beautiful unity 
of the world. The instinctive attraction is developed into 
disinterested desire to promote the well being of others, a 
desire which transcends all others Few attain its ideal. 
To love those who return vindictive hate ; to feel the same 
kind regard and interest in an implacable enemy as in 
a friend ; never to repay unkindness with harsh invective ; 
to regard wrong and error with charity, is an ideal that 
few attain, but with which we endow angelic beings, and 
thus claim as our own highest estate. 

To be benevolent and to love one's own family ; to extend 
these to friends, is too common to mention. Benevolence 
which goes beyond is more rare. When it grasps one's 
country it becomes Patriotism, still selfish and in a degree 
instinctive. 

In all these forms Benevolence does not rank high in 
the scale of the Virtues, nor does it tend greatly to elevate 
the mind. The father who loves his children to idolatry, 
and will make for them any sacrifice, may be a hard, ex- 
acting, unjust man beyond his own fireside. When it 



62 THE ETHICS OF SPIRITUALISM: 

arises from the family, and grasps mankind, irrespective 
of nationality or race, when it feels for suffering where- 
ever found, and with self-forgetfulness devotes itself to the 
good of others, Benevolence becomes Philanthropy; its 
most angelic expression. It sends its Florence Night- 
ingales, to bind up the lacerations of war; its Howards in- 
to the dark recesses of prisons; it holds devoted men to 
their posts of duty in times when pestilence is abroad, and 
great suffering crushes the people. 

JUSTICE 

in the material universe moves in the channels of law. 
From the star to the dancing mote, there is no accident or 
chance. Of these laws we know nothing except by means 
of their phenomena. We kiaow certain causes inevitably 
move to certain effects. The same is true in the domain 
of mind. The relations individuals sustain to each other, 
in the family, the state, and to the world, that each may 
revolve in his own personal sphere, having all his rights, 
yet never infringing on the rights of others, this is Justice. 
The knowledge of what is just and unjust, was not sud- 
denly acquired. Mankind had at first a dim and vague 
conception of the absolute Right. In their attempts to en- 
force Justice they often were excessively unjust. But 
they felt that this absolute existed and that they must con- 
form thereto. They constantly recognized the blindness 
of their predecessors, and reformed their laws. The laws 
are the practical expression of the moral feeling of a peo- 
ple, and determine what is their sense of justice. If the 
laws are severe and cruel, the people are equally severe 
and cruel as a whole. 

This, however, may be observed, they are conservative, 
and usually represent the ideas of a previous generation. 
When their injustice is felt, it is the task of the present to 
reform the inheritance of the past. Thus slowly an ap- 
proximation is made to absolute Justice, as will here- 
after be shown, in the discussion of the criminal code, jus- 
tice is too often used in the sense of vengeance. The pen- 
alty for crime is meted out as retribution and not for the 
sake of Justice, and Mercy tempers Justice not because 
mercy is of iiself just, but because of the pleadings of the 
Affections. In our intercourse with our fellow-men, we 
desire them to act towards us justly, that is to respect our 
individual rights, and not encroach on our sphere of self- 



A SYSTEM OF MORAL PHILOSOPHY. 63 

hood. If actuated by high motives there is no difficulty 
in being just to all. We would shrink from doing to an- 
other what we would not do unto ourselves. 

There are two states in which all the virtues may exist, 
a passive and an active. A man may not do an unjust act ; 
he may never utter a falsehood, he may never be cruel, yet 
he has small credit if he has never acted justly, truthfully, 
mercifully. He may exist in a passive state, and while 
doing nothing bad, do nothing good The Virtues exist 
but in a latent form ; they are asleep, and the individual is 
not bad, simply because his Appetites and Desires are also 
asleep. The harmonious, or ideal man, is the reverse. A 
thousand desires, purposes and motives draw him diverse 
ways, but the conscious intellect and love, impel him in 
the direction of Truth and Right. Does he stumble? 
Does he at times go astray ? Yes, but he rises and seeks 
the right path. He grows strong by experience, and his 
feet become sure. He cannot be always right, for he is 
fallible, but he is conscious that he must put forth his 
best endeavors. The young eagle that would cleave the 
empyrean and soar above the clouds, at first may lose its 
balance on its untried wings. It is not by failures it 
gains control, but by its success. The child learns to 
walk, not by its falls and misses, but by the command ac- 
quired over its limbs by repeated efforts. We may not al- 
ways be just, yet the Absolute Justice is ever before us. 
Man while on earth may never gain that high ideal. 

Religion has lamentably failed in teaching Justice. 
It has allied itself witli the government and taught 
obedience to Caesar instead of to the commands of 
the absolute. It has been the servant of rulers, and taught 
the divinity of kings and autocrats. It has disdained the 
temporal affairs of this life for the next, and offered the 
gloomy consolation for Its injustice, compensation in 
the next. In fact its idea of justice has been compensa- 
tion. They who mourn in this life shall rejoice in the 
next, and they who receive their good things here, shall 
there receive their evil. The main evidence of immortal 
life as stated by the popular religion is its necessity in 
order to compensate the injustice received on earth. 
This is the religious idea of Justice, though some- 
times it changes to that of Vengeance. The Infinite Fa- 
ther is pictured as terribly just, and his divine vengeance 



64 THE ETHICS OF SPIRITUALISM: 

on sinners no more than Absolute Justice! The awful 
picture is intensified by being thrown on a background of 
omnipotent wrath. Faith, interpreted to mean belief in 
dogmas, has been taught to be of more value than actions* 
and often the so-called religion has been divorced from 
morality. 

Religion, if it mean anything, means reliance on the ab- 
solute supremacy of law and man's obedience thereto. 
He who obeys is the religious man. He obeys from 
the knowledge of those laws; because it is right, and 
his own good and happiness and that of others de- 
pends on his so doing. He is also impelled by his 
higher spiritual reason, which preciently directs him 
aright before he has come to a full knowledge of the law. 
He should obey not from selfish motives, but from his 
love of Justice and Right. But does man love Justice? 
Assuredly, else he would have no idea of that virtue. Men 
may be excessively unjust, but, except in savages, they feel 
the reprovings of Conscience. They know that there is 
Justice, and if they do not love, they fear it. In the higher 
development of the individual the love of Justice becomes 
a ruling motive. It is not asked if a certain action will 
be beneficient to self, but is it just? Not in the narrow 
hard sense of the word, meaning that no one is wronged, 
but in the large, broad sense, of benefit conferred. 

LOVE OF TRUTH. 

In the ascending scale from the savage to the civilized 
man, there comes a time when the mind arises into the at- 
mosphere of Truth, — as a granite mountain peak is push 
ed upward above the clouds and mists, and catches the 
golden glory of the sun while all is darkness below. 

Man learns by experience the value of Truth. That false- 
hood and deceit are productive of misery. He finds that 
it is essential to place confidence and faith in others, and 
unless they are truthful, this is impossible. It is interest- 
ing to trace the progressive growth of this virtue from the 
savage who regards falsehood honorable, and has no faith 
in his own brother, his wife or child, to its full expression 
in the ideal angel. Has heredity stored up the results of 
experience, and thus made the man of the present heir to 
all that Truth has gained over falsehood in the past ? This 
is undoubtedly true, and also true that the mind has 
within itself the faculty of Truth. It loves Truth for its 



A SYSTEM OF MORAL PHILOSOPHY. 65 

own sake better than all else in the world. Every effort 
made in invention and discovery arises from this intense 
love. The astronomer keeps nightly vigils, intently gaz- 
ing into the depths of the heavens, that he may gain a 
knowledge of the revolving orbs ; the geologist delves into 
the bowels of the mountains, and perils his life in upturn- 
ing strata, questioning the rocks; the fln and tooth, the 
bone and scale of extinct beings; the chemist labors in his 
laboratory, failing a thousand times to gain one success; 
the antiquarian and historian plod in the misty labyrinths 
of the past, that by chance some hidden manuscript, some 
rude carving on temple wall may shed the light of ab- 
solute Truth on their conjectures, and make plain the early 
pages of history. 

Truth is the precious gem for which the student burns 
his midnight taper, and the man of science never wearies 
in the search; for it, the collosal telescope fathoms the 
infinite deep of stars, and the microscope penetrates into 
the infinite abyss of living forms; for it the Hermit re- 
nounces the pleasures of life and wanders into the wilder- 
ness ; the martyr cheerfully lays down his life, and the 
warrior rushes on certain death. Let even the belief 
that man has the Truth, firmly fix itself in the mind, and no 
sacrifice is too great, ng pain or suffering appalls, no ties 
are binding, before the lofty sense of duty and obligation 
it imparts. 

The perception of Absolute Truth is of slow growth, and 
man has often mistaken his own imperfect sense, for the 
absolute. It is necessary that he should, else he would 
not hold his position. He must maintain the highest 
light that is his, for thereby he gains still higher grounds. 
The same argument applies as to Reason. At first man 
arrives at erroneous results, which proves not that he 
should cease reasoning, but reason more ! In his igno- 
rance he has embraced the wildest errors, and as an idol- 
ator pays his carven image the same devotion as the most 
spiritual worshiper gives to his ideal ; he has zealously 
loved and sacrificed himself to them, because he 
believed he held the absolute. But does this prove there 
is no absolute ? Because history is a record of the mis- 
takes, and man has never been able to distinguish the 
truth, and has been the slave of Error; because he has 
repeatedly made his eternal happiness depend on the re- 



66 THE ETHICS OF SPIRITUALISM: 

ception of doctrines he soon discarded for others held a9 
tenaciously, does this prove there is no Absolute Truth ? 
It proves the imperfection of man, and that there is an ab- 
solute towards which he approximates. 

The mistake is in the ideas taught in the past by de- 
signing men, that man was inclined to error, and had no 
means of himself of arriving at the Truth. He was thus 
necessitated to receive a revelation from a source purporting 
to be divine, as interpreted to him by a class ot self-consti. 
tuted teachers. This result which has been a break on the 
wheels of progress, seems to be an inherent growth of 
human nature, for among all races it has been the same- 
moral truth has become concrete in holy books and a 
priesthood has organized itself as vicegerents of God on 
earth, to interpret his word and guard the morals of the 
people. Only after ages of struggle have the people 
emancipated themselves from this bondage. They have 
gained a knowledge of the Truth in spite of this obstruc- 
tion. 

The facts of the material world are truths comprehended 
by the intellect. Nature never is false, never changes, is 
constant, nor abuses the faith reposed in her. If there is 
seeming contradiction we at once refer it to our under- 
standing. The mind in the spiritual spheres represents 
this harmony. There are a countless host of individuals, 
all revolving in their own spheres, like the suns and 
worlds in space, and all governed by fixed principles, 
which we call Moral Truths, as the methods of Power 
uniting worlds, we call Law. As nature is exact in her 
expression, man desires to become exact in the conduct of 
his life. He must, in order to gain this desirable end, act 
in accordance with his highest perceptions of Truth. 

From Truth arises trust, faith, confidence, without which 
individuals would become selfish, isolated, and unable to 
unite in society. If we reject everything except what is 
demonstrated to us, there will be little left of the Past. 
We must take for granted, or trust to the demonstration of 
others. We trust because we know that the thinkers of 
the world are honest, and if they err, it is from ignorance 
and not design. 

This trusting faith when it is supported by knowledge, 
and is not the slave ot ignorance, is one of the most ex- 
quisitely sweet and beautiful qualities of human nature. 



A SYSTEM OF MORAL PIIILOSOPIIY. 67 

Deceived it often may be, but we feel that it will bloom in 
immortal fruitage after all the Desires and Appetites which 
lead it astray are lost in spirituality. It will be seen in 
this survey that the mind is so closely bound together that 
one division cannot be discussed without unconsciously in- 
vading another. Thus the group of faculties we have placed 
under the name of Love, tor their manifestations, are inex- 
tricably bound to the Perceptions and Reason. A man 
could not be moral without the Perceptions, any more 
than without the group we have termed Wisdom. Reason 
is essential to morality. If a man acts morally simply by 
force of a blind instinctive impulse, he is not thereby a 
moral agent, and derives no merit. 

Wisdom is an essential quality of moral conduct, and 
the Will, the executive force flowing from the mind as a 
whole, responsible for all. 

Still more clearly defined is the unity of the Virtues. 
Their basis is Love, of which they are varying manifesta- 
tion. Love is the divine power which reveals itself in 
obedience to the order of the physical and spiritual worlds. 
It seeks the good and happiness of all other beings. Its 
justice is merciful, unlike the vengeance which flows from 
the Appetites. It has infinite Charity and Benevolence. 
It allies itself to Truth, because the absolute in the mate- 
rial universe is stamped on man the microcosm. 



CHAPTER VII. 



WISDOM. 

The senses and perceptions are channels leading up to 
Wisdom, and are held in common with animals. There 
is no doubt but even the senses of animals are more im- 
perfect than in man. While they see clearly, often more 
quickly, they may not perceive a feature visible to him. 
They may not take cognizance of colors, or of colors only 
in their most intense hues, and sounds audible to the ear 
of one species may be unheard by others. The latter dif- 
ference is marked between savage and civilized man, in 



68 THE ETHICS OF SPIRITUALISM. 

whom all the senses appear most complete, and with 
them the perceptive faculties, which take cognizance of 
phenomena. 

Above these lies a region of pure thought. It is related 
to the superior portion of the brain, which is last to de- 
velop. This thought sphere transcends the animal realm, 
i 1 which are dim prophesies of its grandeur, suf- 
ficient to indicate the continuity of being, and relation of 
the lowest to the highest. Beyond this, man is alone. 
In the highest faculties of knowing, the spiritual per- 
ceptions which take cognizance of spiritual entities and 
their laws, nothing remains to indicate connection with 
lower beings. Conscience is exclusively man's. 

CONSCIENCE. 

Xenophen says of Socrates that " he never discoursed 
concerning the nature of all things, how that which is 
called the Universe i3 constituted, under what laws the 
heavenly bodies exist, etc., but invariably represented 
those who concerned themselves with inquiries of this 
sort as playing fool. First of all he inquired whether 
such persons thought they had so far mastered the acts 
which relate to man as to be justified in proceeding to 
such investigations, or whether they considered it in order 
to have human inquiries for physical researches." 

it is not because the thinker has mastered the facts 
which relate to man that he turns to the Universe, but be- 
cause he shrinks from the subtle profundity of the prob- 
lem furnished by his own mind, and essays the easy task 
of observation of the external world. 

Thus to the question : Has man a conscience ? the an- 
swer to which seems as evident as that to the questions : 
Can he see? Can he hear? Has he a Reason? exactly 
opposite answers are given, and the affirmative which 
was unhesitatingly received at first, has yielded to the 
negative with the advanced and scientific school of 
thinkers. The reason for this, is it fell into bad com- 
pany and became confounded with superstition and 
thereby the prop of creeds and dogmas. The scientific 
thinkers starting from matter, desired to refer all manifest- 
ations to the scheme of Evolution, and explain how 
Thought, Reason, Feeling, result from the accretion of 
experiences, and Conscience must share the common ex- 
planation. 






A SYSTEM OF MORAL PHILOSOPHY. 69 

There are two schools — the Intuitionist and Utilitarian. 
The first claims that Conscience is a faculty of the mind, 
which decides of itself what is right and what is wrong; 
the latter claims that Conscience is the result of experi- 
ence. "What it regards as good is that which results in 
happiness, which is the supreme good. It sneers at 
Conscience as a phantasm, the creature of education and 
superstition, which changes from age to age, with the cul- 
ture of the times. In Mahommedan countries it is different 
from that in Christian; on the Ganges from that on the 
Mississippi; in Catholic from Protestant countries ; so in- 
consistent and dependent is it, that it cannot be an inde- 
pendent faculty. This position is made more plausi- 
ble when we look still deeper into history. Relig- 
ious wars and persecutions, all have grown out of and 
been sustained by Conscience. The Jewish mob cruci- 
fied Christ to appease their Conscience, as Pilate washed 
his hands to allay his own. Conscience built the loath- 
some dungeons and prepared the horrible tortures of the 
the Inquisition ; it gathered the faggots and kindled the 
flames around the heretic ; it suppressed learning ; made 
a merit of ignorance, and has been the slave of religion. 
The man whose Conscience will not allow him to pare his 
nails on Sunday, will rob on Monday without compunc- 
tion. Formerly the minister must have a smooth-shaven 
face, and the Conscience of the laity prevented them from 
the most labor on Sunday. Conscience compels the 
South Sea Islander to knock out one of his front teeth, or 
cut off one of his fingers; the Jew to circumcise; the 
Christian to,be baptized. 

But this is confounding terms. "What is here called 
Conscience is superstition and nothing more, and has only 
a similitude to the real faculty, which, it must be confess- 
ed it has often blinded or completely usurped the place. 
If this reasoning prove the non-existence of Conscience, 
precisely the same argument will prove the non-existence 
of Reason itself. At one stage of mental advancement Rea- 
son declared the world flat, and that the sun and siderial 
heavens revolved around it. It thus interpreted the facts 
of perception. From that time to the present, its voice 
has been in accordance with the entertained facts, con- 
stantly changing. Yet we unhesitatingly declare that 
Reason is supreme umpire in its province. 



70 THE ETHICS OF SPIRITUALISM: 

Of the Conscience the same may be affirmed. It is like 
all mental qualities subject to growth. As in the early 
ages, Reason seems to have been endowed with prescience 
and intuitively grasped results, only demonstrated after 
thousands of years of observation, so Conscience with only 
greater forecast, and more wonderful breadth grasped mor- 
al relations so clear and profound, that not yet has man 
progressed to their practical realization. 

THE CONSCIENCE OF THE SAVAGE 

may be obscure and concealed by superstition. Yet as far 
as it is manifested, it presents the same qualities as that 
of the most civilized man. There is no swerving in its 
decision when applied to its proper subjects. The savage 
has reason, yet arrives at widely varying results from the 
civilized man by its exercise. But as his Reason is un- 
trained, and like the child's, and is often based on insuf- 
ficient data, its results are not of final importance. In the 
same manner the Conscience of savage man arrives at 
moral conclusions, which are imperfect and subject to 
constant revision. 

REASON AND CONSCIENCE. 

Thus it appears that between Reason and Conscience there 
is a perfect parallelism. As Reason may be influenced by 
the Passions and Emotions, so also may be the Conscience, 
and as one when thus overpowered becomes a slave work- 
ing in the interests of its tyrants, so the other unites its 
voice with superstition, and lends its name to religious 
fanaticism and intolerance. As Reason is the umpire of 
facts in the intellectual realm, is Conscience in the realm 
of moral principles. # 

We better understand the processes of Reason which 
deals with physical facts, than its spiritual prototype 
which rests on the subtile perceptions of spirit. The latter 
more closely resembles Reason in its exalted state of pre- 
science, when it apparently escapes the trammels of facts 
and at once seizes on the truth. If Conscience is that fac- 
ulty which discriminates between right and wrong, as 
the imperfect mind cannot know the absolute right and 
wrong, the decision of Conscience must be a comparative. 

As actions of themselves are neither moral nor immoral, 
these qualities belonging to the actor ; and as all actions 
spring from motives, the decision of Conscience must be a 
choice of motives. If all the motives which actuate the 



A SYSTEM OF MORAL PHILOSOPHY. 71 

mind, are on the same plane, and of the same grade, 
then there can be no choice, for one is as good as the 
other. But if these motives are of different grades, some 
being higher than others, then there is a choice. Thus 
the desires are lower than the spiritual aspirations; selfish- 
ness, than benevolence ; greed, than generosity ; intemper- 
ance, than abstinence, and when their conflicting claims 
arise, Conscience at once decides in favor of the higher 
motive. Its voice can never be mistaken. It never fa- 
vors the demands of the lower against the higher facul- 
ties. It ever is allied with the spiritual, the noble, the 
pure. In this respect it is the most clearly defined and 
unmistakable of all faculties of the mind. On this grada- 
tion of the mental faculties, whereby the Will is influenced, 
rests the science of morals. By this means only, is such a 
science possible. Moral principles must be fixed and de- 
termined as the theories of mathematics, else nothing but 
vague uncertainties can result. Progress itself depends 
on fixedness here. 

Conscience deals with living entities— with actors ; with 
actions it has nothing in common. It judges the actors, 
founding its judgment on motives. And it will be found 
that its judgment is in accordance with the grade of those 
actuating motives The result is rarely taken in consider- 
ation. Success would not have changed the verdict in fa- 
vor of Arnold, or have sanctioned the claims of slavery; 
nor defeat have reversed the principles of the Declar- 
ation of Independence, or of the Magna-Charter of 
England. The popular voice is usually an expression 
of popular conscience, and applauds unselfish, noble and 
magnanimous actions, while it sneers and scoffs the self- 
ish, mean and ignoble. Not from its common selfish ex- 
perience that such actions of the individual are best for 
the state, but because to love and respect such motives is 
inherent in the human mind. If this is not so, we have 
the mass influenced to admire in the individual unselfish 
qualities, because these administer to their selfishness 
Now as the mass is composed of individuals with precise- 
ly similar faculties, shall we say, most paradoxically that 
their selfishness admires unselfishness, or rather that they 
admire because there is in them a chord which responds 
with harmonious vibrations to unselfishness? The noble 
soul is adored for his generosity and deeds of self-forget- 



72 THE ETHICS OF SPIRITUALISM: 

fulness, because his adorers feel that he has done what 
they should do, and is possible for them. 

IS THE IMPERFECTION OF CONSCIENCE SUPPLIED BY 
REVELATION ? 

If it is, there should be no hesitation in interpreting that 
revelation. If it is as obscure as Conscience, then it is 
equally uncertain. The Revelation presented, is more 
ambiguous than Conscience. It is differently interpreted 
by different individuals, and hence is an uncertain guide 
or far worse than none. 

If revelation is truly given as a supplementary guide 
to Conscience, it must appeal to Conscience and be in- 
terpreted thereby. If it can understand Revelation, then 
it must have qualities like the revelator ; having which it 
would arrive at the principles of such revelation without 
foreign assistance. If it have not these qualities, it could 
not comprehend such revelation. In either case revela- 
tion can be of no assistance in remedying the imperfec- 
tion of Conscience. 

If Conscience be the result of heredity handing down to 
us the experiences it has treasured, we ask, what faculties 
treasure these experiences, and make this continuous 
analysis of motives? Is it Reason? Is it the Emotions? Is 
it not the Moral, or rather Conscience their complete ex- 
pression and central force ? 

It is in this sense we shall use this term, choosing to re- 
tain it, although liable to misinterpretation, rather than 
introduce a new one. 

ACCOUNTABILITY. 

If a man kill another intentionally or by accident, the 
result is the same, but he in one case would not receive 
blame, for he was not actuated by wrong motives, and 
hence is regarded innocent. The act must be designed, 
and in the design rests the moral accountability, for it is 
the expression of the Will. Conscience is the force which 
influences the Will, or it is a part of the Will itself; distin- 
guishes right from wrong, and decides the course of action. 
Hence it is the last court of appeal. But appeals cannot 
create a tribunal, which must pre-exist. 

It is clear that Conscience cannot exist without Reason 
of which it is a higher part. It is the result of all the per- 
ceiving, knowing spiritual faculties. 

An individual may be learned and not good, because 



A SYSTEM OF MORAL PHILOSOPHY. 73 

Reason has only been cultivated in the relations of phys- 
ical life, and lias not advanced to Wisdom which is the 
comprehension of spiritual forces. Education may stop 
with the physical perceptions, and then the individual 
will have no proper conception of morality. 

It is equally true that a man cannot be positively good, 
without intellectual knowledge : a passive goodness may 
exist with the most complete ignorance. 

In the order of development the Intellect first expaDds 
in perceptions of nature ; its higher percepton of spir- 
itual phenomena and forces are last to appear. This 
growth is in the direct line of the knowing faculties, and 
hence, although as a matter of convenience, and to avoid 
repetition, the term Conscience may be used, it is with 
the significance of "Spiritual Reason.'* 

LOSS OF CONSCIENCE. 

By disuse, Conscience may become lost in the energy of 
the Propensities and Appetites. The child who passes 
sleepless nights because it has gathered a flower not his 
own, may by continuous crimes so destroy Conscience 
that it will cease its reprovings. He may become so 
hardened by deeds of blood that human life will be re- 
garded of no more value than the butcher regards the ani- 
mals that he slaughters. The voice potent at first, becomes 
silent in the contention of baser desires, which unrestrain- 
ed, run swift in their brutal channels. 

The first glass is met with bitter rebuke, but Appetite 
soon silences the reprovings of Conscience, and becomes 
a tyrant. 

Yet we may rest assured that Conscience is never blot- 
ted out. It becomes latent, but may at the proper moment 
be rekindled. 

CHANGE OF HEART. 

It is this fact that makes reformation possible. On 
this fact rests the " Change of Heart," so much sought 
by religionists. However bad the individual may be- 
come, however much he may be the slave of his Desires, 
and little reproved by Conscience, he never can fall to the 
level of the brute, by its destruction. It may be suddenly 
intensified, and become the master. A pirate, whose 
hands were red with the blood of numberless victims, and 
mind calloused to pity, or the emotions of sympathy, was 
resting under the shade of a grove on the coast of Florida, 



74 THE ETHICS OF SPIRITUALISM: 

after a bloody cruise. He slept, to be awakened by the 
cooing of a pair of doves in the branches overhead. For 
a long time he watched their gentle manners, their assid- 
uous attentions, and constancy. A responding chord was 
touched in his heart, a chord which had not vibrated 
since his youth. Conscience became a vital energy, and 
with its intense light flooded his soul. He arose a new 
being, with unspeakable abhorance of his old life. He 
shrank from his former associates, and bade them farewell, 
forever. 

Religious revivals often exert the necessary power by 
which Conscience is awakened, and although accompanied 
with unessential forms and observances, which are made 
more essential than the result itself, are thus of intrinsic 
value. Complete success, however, is rarely attained. 
The disturbed Desires seek to gain their former control, 
and the mind oscillates between contending faculties. The 
individual, "back-slides;" is periodically repentant, and 
perhaps scorned for inconsistency. 

CULTURE OP CONSCIENCE. 

Conscience is strengthened by use. Like the taste for 
the beautiful, it grows with that it feeds upon. Every 
time it chooses between contending motives, it becomes 
stronger and more unmistakable. The moral progress of 
the race is referable to the culture of Conscience which is 
typed in its development in the individual. The observ- 
ance of what are usually called religious rites, is not bene- 
ficial for this culture; nor is the reading of so-called 
moral books, or moral contemplation, of practical value 
as means of culture. Moral books are invariably relig- 
ious books, narrow, one-sided, and sapless and at best, 
contribute to a dreamy, ideal desire. It is by use alone; 
by contact with and decision on actuality that this facul- 
ty receives proper culture. Its constant co-ordination 
with Reason yields the just and desirable balance of the 
mind. 

Our ideal angel is a being perfect in the supremacy of 
Conscience and Reason. The animal nature has no part 
in its choice. Even the inclination to wrong has disap- 
peared, and a calm, undisturbed serenity ever fills its be- 
ing. Temptation may be a test of moral strength, but it is 
not true as held by many that morality depends on its 
presence. The estate of the angel is the desirable goal, 



A. SYSTEM OF MORAL PHILOSOPHY. 75 

and the nearer it is approached by man, the more perfect 
he becomes. 

It is true, that our own failure to do right teaches us 
charity for others, and quickens our sympathy, but it is 
not the origin of these sentiments. We are not charitable 
to others because we feel that we may need their charity; 
nor sympathize with the suffering because we shall want 
sympathy when we suffer. These, with their related feel- 
ings, spring from that realm of mind the central force of 
which is Conscience. 

CAN THE IMPERFECT, BRUTAL MAN ATTAIN THE SUBLIME 
PERFECTION OF THE ANGEL ? 

As a flesh-clad spirit* possessing all the faculties of the 
supreme spirit, as his body is formed from the confluence 
of all elements of the supreme universe, man has the nec- 
essary capabilities. As a being susceptible of progress, 
the perfection of these faculties is the fruition of time. 
As an immortal being, eternity furnishes that element, and 
the improving conditions facilitates the rapidity of ad- 
vancement. 

As Reason throned on intelligence will ascend to the 
comprehension of the laws of the physical universe, Con- 
science will become the shining light of the moral world, 
shedding its pure radiance over the character. This**is 
possible to every human being. However debased and 
brutalized by the accidents of time and place, the spirit 
has within itself the immortal germs of goodness and 
purity. If not awakened in this life, they will be at some 
period in the Hereafter. Life in man is a continuity, not 
broken by death and the hour of change known as re- 
pentance, is never gone by. In the future life, the spirit 
freed from the conditions of physical existence, which 
crushed it in the dust, has a brighter field, and where be- 
fore all influences were earthward, all become spirit-ward. 

Under such conditions advancement is as certain as life. 
The most reckless and debased criminal, lost to sympathy 
and the reprovings of Conscience; utterly selfish and 
brutal, will sometime actualize this ideal; and on the 
highlands where stand those immortals redeemed by 
progress, the marsh-lands from which they have ascend- 
ed, though remembered, will cast no shadow. 

TEMPTATION. 

It is said that as human life is the combination of an- 



76 THE ETHICS OF SPIRITUALISM: 

tagonizing Aspirations, Desires and Appetites; tempta- 
tions on one side; resistance on the other, the future 
life wherein all is perfect and good would be an un- 
bearable monotony; that temptation, suffering from sin 
and reform are essential to happiness. Temptation may- 
develop character through resistance, but it is possible 
for the spirit to arise out of, and above it. It is possible 
for every Faculty and Desire to become so perfectly bal- 
anced and co-related that no whisper shall enter the mind, 
enticing it to any course, but the Just and Right. Tempt- 
ation does not exist for itself, or for its effect on the indi- 
vidual. The individual is tempted because the lower is 
not under complete rule of the higher nature. 

It is not conducive to pure morals, to teach that it is 
necessary for men to be tempted, and sometimes expected 
to yield, nor is it true. It is not necessary, and they are 
always expected to act according to the highest spiritual 
light. If they fail, Charity may shield, but not justify 
them, 

PRACTICE. 

As Conscience chooses between motives, always taking 
the higher, we may always know its voice. It not 
only distinguishes, but impels to the higher course of 
conduct. If then we hesitate, and are at a loss which way 
to go, we should always accept the highest course pre- 
sented, unselfish, instead of selfish; generous, instead of un- 
generous ; forgiving, instead of revengeful ; charitable, in- 
stead of uncharitable ; noble and magnanimous, instead of 
mean and treacherous. Such decisions will never bring 
regret. 

If we are in doubt and many equally strong motives 
impel us in diverse ways, the highest motive should have 
the benefit of such doubts. 

Man should be ruled by his highest faculties, and such 
rule can never bring permanent regret. He never yields 
to a lower motive, to selfishness, greed, treachery, fraud, 
without loss. This is a necessary result of his constitution. 

REWARD. 

When Conscience is the impelling power, the character 
becomes strong, the mind serene, and happiness unalloyed. 
The unselfish action, made for the good of others, re 
bounds to the good of the actor. Such is the beautiful 



A SYSTEM OF MORAL PHILOSOPHY. 77 

compensation, by which all obligations meet a just rec- 
ompense. 

HOW DOES CONSCIENCE DECIDE? 

Right is rewarded by good or happiness ; Wrong brings 
suffering. It will be seen in the sequel how these results 
are natural and unayoidable sequences. Does Conscience 
decide spontaneously, knowing by an all-seeing intuition, 
the Good from the Bad, the Right from the Wrong? Or 
does it infer from facts, in a manner similar to Reason, 
arising by a series of steps to conclusions ? This brings 
us to the question — 

WHAT IS GOOD ? 

Jouffroy says that " the particular good of each creature, 
is but an element of universal order," wherein he strongly 
blends physical laws with moral insight, and does not ac- 
count for the idea of Good. Reason may, and often does, 
regard the " universal order " very differently, and ages 
before such order was recognized, concrete conceptions of 
Good were entertained. If to the idea of universal order, be 
supplemented that of activity for uses related to mind, 
then would arise the conception of Good. 

Another school says : " The highest good, the summum 
bonum, is worthiness of spiritual approbation." — Dr. 
Hickok, Moral Science, p. 43. 

Shall we choose, as an ultimate end, that which we must 
be in order to make the choice ? Equally absurd to sup- 
pose the highest good to consist of personal introspection. 
It would not be a Good to stop short on barren approba- 
tion, even of the most spiritual, for activity is put forth 
for a purpose, else it is objectless, and the purpose of 
right activity over-steps approbation, to its result. 

Dr. Fairchild {Moral Philosophy, p. 21) says Good " con- 
sists in the satisfaction of that sensibility — satisfaction in 
every form in which it can exist." 

This definition places the Desires on a level with the 
highest spiritual perceptions, and makes the satisfaction 
of the Passions, in their lowest estate, a Good. This is the 
position of the optimist, who, affirming all things Right, 
would allow the fire of Desires to consume themselves for- 
getting that ashes only remain after conflagration. 

Happiness, as the Supreme Good, belongs to Paley's Me- 
chanical Scheme of Creation, based on a personal God, 
and the selfishness of his adherents. In the scheme of na- 



78 THE ETHICS OF SPIRITUALISM: 

ture, as Happiness is always in great excess of Pain, what- 
ever is best must produce the greatest amount of happiness. 
To say that the Conscience decides in favor of Happiness, 
is an inversion ; for its decision is for the Right which nec- 
essarily yields the Supreme Happiness. 

Obedience to law is productive of the greatest pleasure, 
but most rarely, is it practical or possible for the mind to 
know that such will be the result of a determinate action ? 
The martyrs and heroes of the world testify that Happiness 
has no part in their determination of Right and Duty. 
Not for Happiness stood Leonidas with his three hundred 
in the Pass of Thermopalae; nor Joan of Arc at the head 
of the French army ; nor Washington with his bleeding 
soldiers at Valley Forge. The love of country, the gener- 
ous emotion of liberty, blotted out every vestige of Happi- 
ness as a motive, and to brand them with such ignoble 
motive, is sacrilege. 

Man being endowed with varied sensibilities, both on 
the physical and spiritual side of his nature, their perfect 
satisfaction in accordance with the laws of each, co-ordi- 
nated with all the others, is the highest Good. This result 
presupposes harmony and perfection of functions, separate 
and collective, and brings into view the comparative Good 
with its many-sided consequences. 

This perfect satisfaction is the Absolute Good, about 
which no one will differ. When we speak of objects as 
Good, the word has a relative and distinct meaning. Ab- 
solute Good is only realized by sentient and thinkiig be- 
ings. The answering of every desire and motive results 
in Happiness. It is the state of virtue. It is pronounced 
good by all, as the most desirable state. 

The opposite condition is Wrong, so pronounced uni- 
versally, for its result is Pain and Unhappiness. 

APPLICATION. 

The most potent fact of wrong-doing is that it is utterly 
opposed to the best interests of the wrong-doer. The 
eternal is sacrificed for the temporal; the advantages of 
all future for the brief moment. The enjoyment of an 
hour is followed by the bitterness of a life-time. The 
wrong-doer may, or may not, be conscious of this fact. If 
sufficiently intelligent, this consciousness will be forced 
upon him. A well-conducted life yields greater gratifica- 
tion even to the Desires, than one ill-regulated and devot- 



A SYSTEM OF MORAL PHILOSOPHY. 79 

ed to the Passions. Happiness pursued as an end, in other 
words, Self-gratilication, ends in disgust and ruin. Not 
that there is intrinsic Wrong in the Desires, but in their 
subjugation of Reason and Conscience. They should be 
controlled and not control. Self-gratification is for brutes. 
Not having Reason or Conscience, they are not expected 
to act otherwise, but man as a moral and reasoning being, 
should be ruled by these faculties. 

There were two theories in ancient times, which have 
held their places to the present : of the Stoics and Epi- 
cureans. The former held happiness in contempt as all 
the accidents of life, and made the Good to consist in liv- 
ing according to Nature and Reason. The latter made 
Happiness, the enjoyment of Desires, the end of life. The 
Master did not construe this in a corrupt sense, but made 
it the enjoyment of mental pursuits, but his followers have 
not failed to render it in the coarse proverb : •' Eat, drink 
and be merry, for to-morrow we die." 

This doctrine has found expression in modern times in 
the theory of 

WHATEVER IS, IS RIGHT, 

the fatalism of the Optimists, which annuls all distinc- 
tions between Right and Wrong, and vitiates accuracy of 
thought by destroying its means of expression. Right 
and Wrong by insensible gradations approach each other. 
They are comparative, admitted ; so do the great and the 
small stand compared, in infinite gradation, but the great 
and the small remain unchanged, and unlimited gradation 
proves not the mountain and molehill the same. 
As truthful to say that 

WHATEVER IS, IS WRONG, 

to be made right in the future. Either statement confuses 
accuracy of thought, and if accepted leads to a placidity 
which receives the most distorting error with approving 
smile. 

Tolerance and commendable charity become a weak 
excuse for, and supine indifference to error. There is 
no absolute Right nor Wrong. What is Wrong for one 
individual may be Right for another; what is Wrong in 
one age, is Right in a succeeding. Even our ideas of 
Right and Wrong, it is held, are gained from selfish con- 
siderations. Whatever effects us unpleasantly or disad- 
vantageous^, we consider Wrong, and the reverse Right. 



80 THE ETHICS OF SPIRITUALISM : 

As every individual's impressions are different, so these 
qualities vary, and hence have no absolute value. 

The eyes of different observers, take in all degrees of 
light, and from blindness to clear vision all degree's of 
sensitiveness exist, yet the light remains unchanging. 
Right and Wrong as absolute moral qualities exist outside 
of moral beings, and not as subjective conceptions in the 
mind. That they are conceived, is evidence of their ex- 
istence in the order of the world. Their Perception is of 
growth like all other faculties of the mind, and is as 
much keener and determinate, in civilized man than in 
savage, as the former is superior to the latter in intel 
ligence. This progress points to an absolute toward which 
the noblest aspirations of the mind are attracted. Hedged 
in by expediency, and endeavoring to tread the treacher- 
ous path of compromise, it feels that beyond its best ef- 
forts is an absolute, which admits of no comparison. 
Every hour of life it asks itself the momentous question : 
What is Right, and its interpretation seals its destiny. 
Not how will this effect ourselves alone, but how will it 
effect others, must be our inquiry. Will it give them pain, 
deprive them of their just measure, or in any way be 
detrimental to them ? If we are gainers, and they are 
losers, is evidence of injustice. We cannot isolate our- 
selves from humanity and receive benefits at the expense 
of others, without being overtaken at some time by the 
consequences. Integral parts of the human world, the 
least member of that world cannot be injured without our 
experiencing the result. Right injures no one. It is bene- 
ficient to all. 

HAPPINESS 

rests on this lofty state of benevolence flowing to the mind, 
as an under current, from the flood streaming out from it 
continually. The good of others is our own Supreme 
Good. Benevolence is never in error, never wrong. It is 
a key-note in the octave of the spirit. 

LIFE A DISCIPLINE. 

As the embryonic forms of higher animals revert to the 
lower, ascending by various stages to their permanent 
level, so every child is born a savage, having only the su- 
perior capabilities bestowed by hereditary descent from 
civilized ancestors. The capabilities are at first latent, 
and the child of savage and the child of civilized parents 



A SYSTEM OF MORAL PHILOSOPHY. 81 

travel side by side in gaining knowledge of the relations 
they sustain to external things. It has been said that the 
first questions asked by primitive man were — How? Why? 
Wherefore ? These are the first asked by every child — 
asked even before they learn the use of spoken language. 
From that period onward, the child is absorbed in the ac- 
quisition of knowledge. He has entered a new and strange 
world, and it is essential he learn the relations between 
himself and external nature. Possessing a will seemingly 
independent and free, the young barbarian asserts his king- 
ship — to find his vassals stubborn and relentlessly unyield- 
ing. He clutches at the moon and learns the reality of 
space ; or the glittering flame and discovers the properties 
of heat; essays to walk and by many a fall becomes con- 
scious of attraction. 

TO CONQUER NATURE. 

Nature submits to no rude hand. He learns that she is 
only conquered by obedience to her laws. He may pout 
over his bruised head, cry over the smarting burn, but Na- 
ture is an unrelenting mother coaxing none of her chil- 
dren. Her rules are fixed and deviate not for the child of 
an emperor more than for the larva of the ephemera. He 
gains knowledge of her laws by the resistance they offer — 
a veritable fetish worshiper, he kicks the table, against 
which he bumps his head, as the grown children in the 
childhood of the world sought to chain the sea, or control 
the winds. The table does not change to a cushion to 
save his tender feet. Such is his first discipline, and slow- 
ly, as his mind matures, he finds that so far from being a 
born lord, he is a humble serf; that above, beneath, and 
around him, stretch the iron arms of inflexible law, and 
instead of commanding, he must obey. Overwhelmed with 
a dim consciousness of his position— his weakness on the 
one hand, and on the other the gigantic powers of nature 
— primitve man defied the latter, and explained his own 
contradictory being by saying that his mortal life was a 
probationary state wherein his god-like spirit underwent 
a process of purification, which completing, it would 
ascend to its native home. How, why, wherefore, were 
all explained and through the solution, vaguely gleamed a 
strand of truth. This life was perceived to be one of dis- 
cipline. Here man, the brute, was wedded to man, the spir- 



82 THE ETHICS OF SPIRITUALISM: 

it, and the high end of his existence was to bring the former 
into subjection to the latter. 

Fearfully long and wearisome ; terribly painful, and be- 
set with torture of body and spirit has been the road in 
the race he has traveled to reach the goal. 

THE PATH OF ADVANCE. 

It began with the savage of the wild, clad in a skin tied 
around his loins, hairy, matted-locked, armed with a club or 
stone, feeding on raw flesh, solitary, distrustful, vindictive, 
cruel and selfish, living only for himself. It ends in the 
ideal of spiritual perfectibility, the man living for others 
instead of himself, with sympathetic benevolence embrac- 
ing all human beings, acknowledging the use of his phys- 
ical nature, but holding it in strict abeyance to his spirit- 
ual perceptions. This long stride of development has been 
made with blood and toil. 

Tribe has destroyed tribe ; nation, nation; and great races 
have pitted themselves in death grapple. Empires have 
arose and melted away. Kings, theocrats, autocrats, and 
the turbulent masses have in turn vainly striven, retarding 
or accelerating as their influence was thrown on the side 
of the brute or the angel. Great thinkers have been cast 
up by the seething waves, like pearls from the wild depths, 
from whose birth date eras of progress. 

This interminable interval must be traveled by every 
child with this advantage ; the way is prepared for it, and 
it may thus quickly pass over. May, or it may linger 
under the pressure of interwoven circumstances, and in 
the midst of civilization remain a barbarian, as criminals 
and law-breakers exemplify. 

This life is not probationary ; coming up from the rank 
soil of animal being, dwelling in the midst of sentient life, 
and sending down strong roots into the physical stratum, 
our spiritual nature, of slow growth, must be cultivated 
carefully as an exotic; else the rank weeds will over- 
top and sap its vitality. From the cr adle to the grave, 
Life is discipline. Children are sometimes born with 
extraordinary mental and spiritual endowments; the 
majority must by effort attain the status these possess 
by their happy organizations. If "whatever is, is 
risht," then the brute of our nature is as divine as our 
morality. 

" It in excess, let the passions burn themselves out, and 



A SYSTEM OF MORAL PHILOSOPHY. 83 

then will the man become subject to hi9 angel nature," 
says the optimist. This conception so satisfactory to the 
Desires, and appeasing to opposing Conscience, is danger- 
ous and false as it is subtle. The strongest faculty draws 
the most sustenance at the expense of the weaker. Like 
the hardiest cub, it not only absorbs its own share, but 
pushes its weaker fellow. Does it grow weak by satiety ? 
The fire is extinguished by burning itself out—what re- 
mains ? Ashes. 

*' The passions are natural, let them go; ae a river flows 
to the sea, as the fire burns. Their manifestations are as 
right as those of the intellect. Why restrain them ? Why 
denounce and punish V It is the only way some men can 
be reduced, and gain control of themselves, and commence 
a higher course of advancement." 

THINGS ARE AS THEY ARE BECAUSE THEY MUST BE, 

not because right ; because such is written in the consti- 
tution of the world. He who unleashes his brutal nature, 
under the delusion that it is right, ever finds, to his cost, 
that misery is the sternly inflicted penalty. Do the pas- 
sions extinguish themselves? Ah ! the result is a wreck 
of manhood over which angels weep! 

The distinction of Right and Wrong in all our actions is 
spoken in words unmistakable; "Right always confers true 
and permanent happiness ; and Wrong with equal certain- 
ty brings suffering. The deceptive gleam of sensuous 
pleasure, too often mistaken for happiness, is the foretaste 
of misery: sensuous pain in the triumph of conscience, is the 
harbinger of endless pleasure. Subjected to this impartial 
test, " Whatever is, is right," with the deductions flowing 
logically therefrom, fall as idle schemes of those who 
would rebuke error with an excuse for the ruin it pro- 
duces. 

Even these theorists acknowledge that ultimately the 
recreant will commence to advance, and as they ignore 
discipline and restraint, they would have a ruin burned 
and charred, rather than the plastic material fresh from 
the quarry. 

Life is for discipline and progress. Reasoning founded 
on its termination at the grave is fallacious. Our every 
thought and deed having eternal relations, the faculties 
which connect us to external life are necessary so far as 
they effect that object, but any further extension of their 



84 THE ETHICS OF SPIRITUALISM: 

sphere is detrimental. They are for to-day, but the spirit- 
ual is for time. In this life we are dual in our relations; 
ours are the finite possibilities of to-day, and the infinite 
of tomorrow. 

Turn where we will we find this lesson taught in unmis- 
takable language, and the lash of pain distinguishes with 
nicest discrimination the Right from the Wrong in the 
conduct of life. 

The child setting forward toward the ideal angel, be- 
fogged by the world, is content to remain half a savage; 
that is, dominated over by his brutal nature, or its slave, 
restrained only by the laws of the society of which he is a 
member. 

CONSEQUENCES. 

If we do Wrong we are certain to bear the consequences; 
if Right to enjoy the results. To know the Right from 
the Wrong is the foundation of moral conduct. To know 
these involves a knowledge of man's nature and of the 
world. Hence the highest morality must rest on knowl- 
edge and the Intellect be between the world of life and 
morals. 



CHAPTER VIII. 



WISDOM— THE WILL. 

The Will is considered by mental philosophers as a dis- 
tinct and independent faculty, and source of power. In 
moral philosophy it becomes the source of responsibility, 
and its freedom is a cardinal doctrine of theology. Man 
cannot be held responsible for his actions unless they are 
of his own free choice. They must be within his means 
of doing, and he must not only be allowed to do or not do, 
but have the power within himself. If he is hedged in by 
circumstances which change the purpose of his Will, and 
if that Will be dependent on his physical surroundings 
and mental conditions, he cannot be said to be a free mor- 
al agent in the theological acceptation of that term. 



A SYSTEM OF MORAL PHILOSOPHY. S5 

IS MAN FREE ? 

If we consider the constitution of man, we shall arrive 
at a widely diverse conclusion. The individual is the re- 
sult of every cause and condition, which has been exerted 
not only directly on himself, but his ancestors from re- 
motest time. He is a center stance, in which blends this in- 
finite series of causes and conditions. This cumulation 
from the beginning; this resultant of the entire mind, is 
the Will. 

If the Will is a distinct power, or source of power, why 
is its strength in any given direction exactly proportioned 
to the strength of mind in that direction? For illustration, 
when combativeness is strong, why does the individual 
Will to be combative, and if weak, why Will to be the 
reverse ? 

If a man has untoward ambition, the Will is alike fa- 
vorable to ambition. If he is without, there is no vaulting 
Will. 

The same is shown functionally when a portion of the 
brain is removed, as has been repeatedly done by acci- 
dent. With such destruction or removal, certain facul- 
ties cease to be manifested, and with them the Will in 
their particular direction. The Will is the result of all 
past experiences of the individual, direct and by heredity, 
received through all the faculties, reacting on the outer 
world. While responsible, it is not correct to hold it as 
an absolute free agent, which of itself choses and impels. 
What is this power of the Will ? It is that of the individ- 
ual as a whole. 

It is essential that the Will be understood, for on its un- 
derstanding rests an estimate of human actions; praise 
and censure, and our penal code. If a man do wrong be- 
cause the Will is inherently depraved, when he could do 
right if he so willed, moral philosophy assumes a theolog- 
ical aspect, with which this is a favorite dogma: Man can 
will as he pleases. Although this has long been accepted, 
it certainly is one of the most erroneous theories, and lead3 
to deplorable consequences. 

REFORM. 

If a man after a long series of crime changes his course, 
and begins to do right, we say he wills to reform. It 
would be more correct to say that the nobler faculties of 
his mind have been aroused. This can not be accomplish- 



86 THE ETHICS OF SPIRITUALISM: 

eel by the unassisted Will, for no such autocratic power, 
superior to all the faculties exists in the mind. 

The loss, or weakening of the Will, is the decay of all 
the faculties, or it may result from a negative passive con- 
dition. Such persons are said to have *' no Will of their 
own," always conceding to those they are with. They 
would be of no use in the world, were it not for the use 
others make of them. 

CAN WE DO AS WE PLEASE ? 

To say we can do as we please, ignores the question of 
Will, for it is really saying we Will thus and so, conse- 
quently we can Will, which is a truism. The real ques- 
tion is, Can we Will ourselves to Will, to do a given task, 
or think a certain train of ideas ? It is self-evident that 
we cannot; that the Will cannot transcend the mental 
qualities on which it rests, and from which it springs. 

Nothing proves this more completely than the force of 
habit. The drunkard may Will to reform, and for a time 
maintain his determination, but the desire for stimulants 
increases, until it sweeps his resolution away. He strives 
for a time, and beats the current, all the time feeling that 
his strength is only for the time, and will soon yield. He 
feels that he is doomed, irrevocably. The Appetites affect 
the Will in the same manner, and starvation will reduce 
the most sensitive to a cannibal. 

DEVELOPMENT OF THE WILL. 

The assent of the Will may be traced from the sensitive 
contraction of protoplasmic life upward through the as- 
cending series, from the involuntary to the voluntary. 

The highest animal is governed by instincts which are 
incoherent efforts of Will. Children are dominated in the 
same manner, and many adults cannot be said to have 
Wills of their own. In the more perfect man we find the 
diverging purposes unitized, and the highest expression 
of Will is the voice of Reason and Conscience, which is 
justly given the government of the conduct of life. It is 
considered wrong to Will to do anything unjustified by 
the higher faculties. To do otherwise, to Will to follow 
the Propensities or Appetites is regarded as 

DEPRAVED. 

The Will receives the blame and is made the seat of 
"moral depravity." 
The seat of " moral depravity " is not in the Will, for 



A SYSTEM OF MORAL PHILOSOPHY. 87 

the Will cannot act without motives, and these motives 
of wrong action are formed by the Propensities and Appe- 
tites. The moral faculties are always moral, and hence 
the term " moral depravity " is a misnomer, such a state 
being impossible. 

CULTURE OF THE WILL. 

An Egyptian physiognomist on reading the character of 
Socrates, said he was a libertine. Then his disciples 
laughed, so far thought they, the reading departed from 
the truth, but Socrates chided them, saying the Egyptian 
was right; that he had been, and only overcame his appe- 
tite by severest discipline. Strength of Will, morally di- 
rected, is one of the noblest traits of man, because it is a 
measure of his attainments, and prophesies his inconceiv- 
able possibilities. 

By the culture of the harmonious activity of all facul- 
ties, and the constant enort to place the higher in just as- 
cendency, the Will may be strengthened in that direction, 
to an unlimited extent. Not only can it gain mastery 
over the body, defying the pangs of hunger, and the fever 
of thirst, and the keenest arrows of pain, it treads the de- 
sires beneath its feet, and shows how much stronger is the 
spirit than the body. The martyrs who smile at physical 
pain, show how independent the spirit may become through 
the force of high resolves, and they who forsake all for 
principle illustrate the same in the higher sphere of intel- 
ligence. 

In this high relation, the Will has no limitation except 
the mental qualities with which it deals. It can create no 
new faculty. It can only use the material at hand. 

The term Will, as popularly used, means the sum of the 
mental activities. We must regard it as the dynamics of 
the mind. To say it is corrupt, is saying in another form 
that the mind itself is corrupt. To say it has become 
pure, and never yields to base desires, is saying that the 
mind has been cultured in that direction. 

But so thoroughly are we bound in the iron ways of 
habit, that the term must be retained, to avoid tedious cir- 
cumlocution, as we retain Conscience, giving it a modified 
meaning. 

So far as man is a circumstance, his Will is not free ; as 
a centerstance of force it becomes free. The mind as a 



88 THE ETHICS OF SPIRITUALISM: 

treasure house of the past, is a mighty reserve force which 
is at the disposal of the Will. 

Writers of the school of Darwin, Spencer and Bain have 
explained the processes of this cumulation, and consider 
their statement of facts as demonstrations. They have, 
however, allowed the real question to escape them. They 
have only shown how individualized spirit gains control 
over matter. They have not given the least explanation 
of the origin of ideas, or how matter gets caught in the 
vortices of thought. After all their labors they are little 
nearer the explanation than at the beginning, for they are 
prepossessed with false views which distort their con- 
elusions. 

Man's accountability must be referred to his Will, as his 
executive power. He cannot be said to be accountable in 
the old sense of that term. He is only accountable to the 
fixed order of nature expressed through her laws. 

We have thus rapidly outlined the principles of the 
mind sufficiently to make clear the application of practi- 
cal morality. We have not attempted to state the theories 
of others from Plato down to the present time, a task 
which of itself would have many times filled one volume, 
and been barren of results ; nor have we wasted time in 
disputation, disproving the countless speculations on the 
origin and clarification of the mental and moral qualities. 
Instead we have presented direct the principles on which 
we base our practical system with our reasons for their 
acceptance, and the future pages will be devoted to their 
plain application, so that we may not only say, do right, 
but give the reasons therefor. 



A. SYSTEM OF MORAL PHILOSOPHY. 89 

CHAPTER IX 

CHARTER OF RIGHTS. 

The existence ot a being is its Charter of Rights. It is 
an incontrovertible evidence that such a being has the 
right to all the essential conditions for the maintainance 
of such existence. The presence of lungs not only proves 
that there is an atmosphere, it also proves that this organ 
ovrns by right so much of the atmosphere as is required to 
expand its cells, and arterialize the blood that flows there- 
to. The appetite of thirst, which indicates the absolute 
necessity of water to the sustainance of the organism, de- 
clares its right to so much water as shall answer its wants. 
There can be no other side to this question. For it would 
not only be a want of benevolence, but a cruel blunder to 
create a being with imperative wants and not to supply 
those wants. To create fish, which by their constitution, 
could only enjoy life in the water, and not to give them 
the boundless tide to which fin and gills are fashioned; to 
create birds with wings to cleave the atmosphere of the 
azure sky, and withhold that element, would be to defeat 
the object of their creation. The form of the fish demon- 
strates its right to the water ; the wings of the bird its 
right to use them in the air; the lungs have a right to be 
filled with air, the thirst to be slaked by water. 

Hunger, the terrible necessity of life, carries with it the 
right of gratification. In the animal it knows no limita- 
tion. It is there the fundamental right, equivalent to that 
of existence. In man the rights of the Appetites are sub- 
ject to the limitation of his superior faculties. The indi- 
vidual is confined in his sphere by that of other individ- 
uals. He has a right to act precisely as he pleases in that 
sphere. He must never transcend it and trespass on the 
rights of others. The air and water are so abundant that 
none claim preoccupancy, or dispute their use. With food, 
and the right of Hunger, it is different. In the savage state, 
man a creature of the tropics, supplies his scanty wants 
from the teeming abundance of Nature, and the answer of 
hunger is as certain as that to the desire for air. But in an 
advanced and more crowded state, food keeps pace in no 
ratio with the demand. The intelligence of man must di- 



90 THE ETHICS OF SPIRITUALISM: 

rect his hands to labor for the increase of fruits, grains and 
animal life. 

IN A CROWDED STATE LIFE MUST BE SUPPORTED BY LABOR. 

The earth itself will furnish only a little of what is de- 
manded. The game in four thousand acres of forest, may 
satisfy the hunger of one Indian, but it will be an insignif- 
icant fraction of supply to a thousand people which civil- 
ization crowds on the same area. Only by labor can the 
deficit be supplied ; labor of the hands, in tilling the soil, 
mining the ores, fashioning machines to do more work, 
or the exchange of surplus products. 

Hunger stimulates labor and is supplied thereby. Hun- 
ger has the right to the food it demands, limited by the 
right to gain that food by labor. This is the first law of 
Right, limited in man by Benevolence, for, labor must not 
be at the expense of others. It follows that 

LABOR, WHEN SO DIRECTED, HAS THE RIGHT TO ITS OWN 
PRODUCTS. 

The idea of ownership is inherent in being, and the deed 
of ownership is doing something to create or appropriate. 
Any law, or usage which conflicts with this primary right 
is wrong. 

" Ah," it is said, " you make no exceptions ; then every 
child, when born, has a right to be fed and clothed; 
every man to be fed and clothed 'c" Certainly, as every 
child, when born, has a right to fill its lungs with air, to 
be nourished at its mother's breast, to water when thirsty. 
This right is, however, subject to this qualification, love 
assures the rights of the child, labor must that of the man. 

It is not enough that this be granted. 

LABOR MUST BE ALLOWED OPPORTUNITY. 

It is not enough to say man has the right to labor; he has 
the right to the opportunity to labor, and having the op- 
portunity all that results, should be his. 

RIGHT TO LAND. 

As the land is the primary source of supply of food, La- 
bor has the right to the land, and they who use it with 
greatest profit, that is, make it most productive, have the 
right to the land. This law is illustrated in the contact of 
culture with barbarous peoples. The race that make the 
land produce the greatest supply of food, is its triumphant 
owner. 



A SYSTEM OF MORAL PHILOSOPHY. 91 

'• Ah, this is agrarianism !" No, for in a long period of 
civilization the land does not remain in the wild. Air and 
water are ever the same, but the land is changeable. The 
forest is removed ; the stagnant waters drained away, the 
crust pulverized, and an ownership established by the la- 
bor expended, which has received no reward, except in 
ownership, which is valuable for what it may yield in the 
future. If such land cannot be occupied by the one who 
has given this preparatory labor, and is by another, it is 
just that the products of this joint labor be equitably di- 
vided in proportion to the value of each. This is rent, or 
interest which are really one and the same, for interest 
would never be paid on money, if money would not pro- 
cure the use of something desired. Rent, then, of itself, is 
just, and not to be regarded by labor as a grievance. But 
when it exacts more than its share, it becomes the most un- 
just and oppressive power possible to conceive. Having 
seized the means of life, it reduces labor to a pitiable strug- 
gle for existence granted by monopoly with begrudging 
scorn. 

RENT AND INTEREST. 

In our present complex civilization, however, rent and 
interest are means whereby present lab^r is robbed by that 
of the past. Past labor is aggregated in capital, which rep- 
resents the surplus savings of labor. The desire of owner- 
ship is essential to human well being, to progress and civil- 
ization; but ownership should not transcend the law of 
Love and Benevolence. So great are the demands that la- 
bor cannot of itself, honestly directed, accumulate more 
than a competency under the most favorable circumstances 
during the brief period of earthly life. By yielding to the 
love of wealth for its own sake ; crushing love and be, 
nevolence, and giving rein to the propensities; by fraud, 
dishonesty, sharp practices and dubious ways of trade, for- 
tunes are accumulated, which have no relation to the labor 
of the legal owner. The production or acquisition of 
wealth is not governed by the laws of human well being, 
as expressed in the higher morality, and hence accumu- 
lated labor, or capital stands opposed to present labor. 
The means of labor are monopolized, and it is compelled 
to give the lion's share for the privilege of activity. 

ILLUSTRATION OP THE MILL. 

As an illustration, there is a river, which by a costly 



92 THE ETHICS OF SPIRITUALISM : 

dam, will become a continuous source of power. The op- 
portunity is seized by an energetic individual, who proceeds 
to make the dam and build a mill for grinding. To make 
the comparison complete, we must suppose that there is no 
other mill, nor can be, and that the people cannot grind 
for themselves. This mill must grind their corn, or they 
can have no bread. The owner of the mill now says, " I 
will grind your corn for half," and the people are thankful, 
he is satisfied with less than the whole; or he may not wish 
to work himself, and say to the people, " You may grind 
for yourselves, and give me nine-tenths and you may ha^e 
the remaining " Under these circumstances they would 
be compelled to obey or starve. So long as their oortion 
sustained them, they may not rebel, and to find that mini, 
mum, would be the study of the owner. 

The injustice of such an arrangement is too obvious to 
require serious answer, yet it is a mild form of monopolv. 
Cannot the mill-owner say to the people, " This is my mill, 
I built it, and the dam, ana by foresight discovered the 
water-fall. You may do as you please about bringing your 
corn. If you do not, I can lock my door." They plead: 
" We cannot have our corn ground into meal anywhere 
else. We must bring it." " Well," he might reply, " do not 
grumble, then. I am not to blame for there not being two 
mills. I built this for myself, and not for you. I hope you 
do not doubt my ownership, and has not oae a rignt to do 
as he pleases with his own?" 

Justly, the mill-owner should receive reward for the la- 
bor he has invested, in due proportion to that which uses 
it. Because he caw, exact more is no reason why ne should. 
He has no right to the work the powers of Nature are doing 
for him, more than he would have to the air or the sunshine. 
These forces are the birth-right of all men. If actuated by 
justice, he would say, " I will take so much as will pay me 
for my labor, past and present, or you may grind your- 
selves, and give an equivalent for my part of the labor." 

It is thus seen that the wrong is fundamental, lying at 
the root of the popular idea of ownership, which is pos- 
session, and thejpower to hold. Whereas true ownership 
is based on the spiritual law of uses. 

If the farmer owns his farm, cultivates his broad acres 
of grass and grain, and rears his domestic herds for the pur- 
pose of increase, as the ultimate end, he fails in his efforts. 



A SYSTEM OF MORAL PHILOSOPHY. 93 

The purpose of all bis labors should be the culture of his 
family and himself. More than this, it is not possible for 
him to do, and less is giving the control of his life to the 
earth-side of his nature which has no permanent value. 
He has ownership, so far as the gratification of physical 
wants demand for his highest spiritual attainments. 

By the present monopoly, the Past instead of a loving 
mother, becomes the enemy of the Present, and enslaves it 
for the purpose of accumulating a stronger power against 
the Future. Day by day the lot of the laborer becomes 
harder, and to achieve success more difficult. Everything 
is grasped and will not be relinquished. While ownership 
is natural and desirable, it must not rest alone on legal 
enactment. Whenever exercised for its own sake, it must 
work disastrously, as the exercise of selfishness always 
does. The man who collects a vast library for the pur- 
pose of owning it, while he cares not to read, nor allows 
any one else, would be considered supremely selfish and 
ignoble, while the man who made the collection for the pur. 
pose of throwing it open to the public for the benefit of all, 
would be regarded as a benefactor. It is precisely the 
same with all wealth. When grasped for self, the pur- 
poses of its creation are defeated. 

A greater evil than has yet been mentioned, results from 
this monopoly. The many who are compelled to over-work 
to gain a sufficiency to supply the demands of Hunger 
alone, having no time, nor inclination for spiritual cul- 
ture, lose all the advantages of life. Denied the first right, 
they lose by default all the others. If such monopoly did 
not exist; if Wealth was held by Benevolence and not by. 
Selfishness ; if the better and nobler ideas of the purposes 
of life and its mutual responsibilities were entertained, 
Hunger would not only have the right to labor, but its op- 
portunities. 

The Government of the United States, at a day too late 
for its full usefulness, has recognized this principle in 
the free homestead law, by which the actual occupant be- 
comes the owner of the soil. It has not, be it regretted, 
forestalled monopoly by just laws. 

In all this reasoning we have understood that Labor is 
to be directed in channels for the good of man, and not to 
his detriment. The statement may be softly made that 
one-half of all the labor expended by man is for objects 



94 THE ETHICS OF SPIRITUALISM : 

deleterious or useless. In the ministering to the habits 
created by narcotics and alcoholic stimulants, an incalcu- 
lable amount of labor is expended, for the ruin of fellow- 
men. If the laborer understands the law and responsibil- 
ity of labor, he could not conscientiously engage in work 
which is not only useless, but positively and unmitigated- 
ly bad in all its consequences. 

We have then three fundamental rights: the right to air, 
to water, to food, and the right necessitated by the latter to 
labor, with the opportunity which makes such labor avail- 
able. 

Also that Labor has the right to its own productions, 
limited by the law of highest uses. 

These may be regarded as physical rights, having which 
we may consider our spiritual. 

LIBERTY. 

First, is Liberty. Of bodily Liberty we need net speak, 
for it is to the American mind an axiom, that man 
should be physically free. In whatever station of life, he 
is born free. His muscles are for the support of himself 
and for the use of no other. Except by forfeiting this 
right by disregard of the laws of Society, he cannot lose it. 

Of the freedom of the mind doubts still exist and a vast 
majority live in abject slavery. 

The fetters which bind the body may be unspeakably 
wrong and deplorable, but those which bind the soul are 
incomparably more ruinous. This bondage is gained and 
exercised through ignorance, and the superstition it fosters. 
It is this which maintains the hoary wickedness of church 
and state. Religion has been the hardest master, and to it 
man has gone down abjectly in the dust. It has forbidden 
him to think for himself, and he has received through a 
blind faith the wildest dogmas. 

HAS MAN THE RIGHT TO THINK FOR HIMSELF? 

Protestantism answered, "Yes," but it added thereafter, 
"to think as Protestants do!" From whence came the right 
of a church to dictate what a man shall think, or believe ? 
Is not a church an aggregation of men, and does a body of 
men acquire a right not possessed by them as individuals? 
Can they as a whole arrive at a truth which they could 
not as individuals ? Having a body, carries with it the 
right to use that body for its natural uses, and having a 
mind gives the right to use that mind — to think. We have 



A SYSTEM OF MORAL PHILOSOPHY. 95 

a right to believe, or disbelieve, whatever we please; 
to read such books as may interest us ; to listen to such 
discourses; to write or speak, as we please, subject only to 
the limitation that in so doing we do not interfere with 
other's rights in the same direction. 

It may be urged that any divergence from established 
customs, would be such interference. Sabbath-breaking, 
for instance, might be thought a violation of the rights of 
those who regard that day as expressly holy. But it must 
be considered that no one can justly or authoritatively 
say to another what is holy or what is not holy. If the 
day is to them holy, they may use it for such service as 
they please, and allow others who do not agree with them 
to use it as they may desire. They have no right over the 
day except for themselves. 

It may be claimed, in the same manner, that the Press, 
although tree, has no right to publish pernicious doc- 
trines. Who is to decide what pernicious doctrines are ? 
To church members, materialism or atheism would be 
considered exceedingly so, and to an atheist the church 
dogmas would be thought exceedingly harmful. There is 
iortunately or unfortunately no infallible tribunal to 
which to appeal, and if the press be free it must be al- 
lowed to express views on all subjects, nor be prohibited 
except in case of gross immorality. Even in such case, it 
is doubtful whether suppression is the proper method. 
Such papers are not the cause, but effect, and when the 
cause is removed they will disappear. The heralding of 
every crime by the press at first may incite to crime, but 
in the end, the certainty of wide exposure becomes a 
strong motive against its committal. The argus eye of 
the newspaper is ever open, and there is a scorpion's lash 
ready at any moment. 

The true principle is that in 

FREEDOM THERE IS SALVATION. 

The failures it apparently makes grew out of a pre- 
ceding order for which it is not responsible, as the flame 
is not for the injury done the moth that is dazzled into 
infatuation and burns its wings. 

Liberty must not be confounded with license, which is 
its selfish exercise at the expense of others. It is the 
mistake of the suddenly-freed slave ; of the emancipated 
serf of ignorance and superstition. 



96 THE ETHICS OF SPIRITUALISM: 

America is said to be free, and every one allowed to 
think as they please. Yet it is far from that perfect 
liberty which is desirable. It would be impossible for a 
Mohammedan to gain an official position, and a free thinker 
receives fewer votes as he is outspoken. It is not true 
that every one is allowed to worship or not worship, 
with identical results. The tendency is powerfully to- 
ward the church, and a large proportion of the people 
are held in spiritual bondage. If man has the right to 
think, he has the right to think as he pleases. How cor- 
rectly he may think, how truthful the results of thinking, 
depends on his education. The ignorant man is a slave 
of superstition. His mind is not reliable and is swayed 
by inferior influences. 

RIGHT OF MENTAL CULTURE. 

As the province of the mind is thought, which is the 
sum of all uses, and the apparent purpose of life, it has 
the right to the means of its cultivation. In other words, 
the possession of an educatable mind proves its right to 
education. Society acknowledges the right, because it 
understands the advantage conferred, is reciprocal. Edu- 
cation is the food of the mind, as bread is that of the body. 
What we mean by education is not the narrow training, to 
read and speak as taught in the schools, but the complete 
harmony illustrated in the chapter on "The Duty of Cul- 
ture." One may read and write well and yet be abjectly 
ignorant. 

HAPPINESS. 

This subject may be argued on other grounds, and of- 
ten is; that of happiness. It is the right, it is said, of 
every being to enjoy the largest measure of happiness 
compatible with its constitution. Happiness is a result, 
and should not be a motive. We do not seek food that 
we may be happy, but because impelled by hunger. 
We may be very happy when we secure it, but that is an 
after thought. The experience may be remembered, and 
in that manner enter into our ideas of the gratification, 
the primary motive remains. If we associate happiness 
with the gratification of the appetites, it is from memory 
of experiences which have taught that such gratification 
gives pleasure. In the same manner we associate misery 
with experiences of great deprivation or over indulgence. 



A SYSTEM OF MORAL PHILOSOPHY. 97 

WOMAN'S RIGHTS. 

In the foregoing discussion, the word man is used in its 
broad acceptance as embracing all human beings, and it 
must be understood that all the rights belonging to one 
sex, equally belong to the other. 

To decide what are woman's rights, there is but one 
question. Is she a human being? If" yes " be the reply, 
then she has all the rights of a human being. There can 
be nothing more self-evident. If it be asked : Is she the 
equal of man? We reply, that she is equal in some respects, 
inferior and superior in others. Her constitution and the 
sphere it prescribes is different from his, in a portion 
of its arc, but in the main coincides. Her equality, or 
inequality, however, has nothing to do with the question. 
The highest form of civilization must give woman equal 
rights and equal opportunities with man. Emancipated 
from the slavery which, from the dawn of the race, has 
been her lot, and freed from the mental traits this slavery 
has cultivated, her future will be inconceivably glorious. 
She is now behind man in the race, because she has been 
retarded. Her future is now opening before her. Every- 
thing she may desire to do awaits her hand. 

It is pitiable to see the opponents of woman's rights, 
bring as evidence anatomical and physiological peculiari- 
ties, in precisely the same spirit as the old defenders of 
slavery did that of the hair, the color of the skin, or the 
conformation of the skull. What has all this to do with 
rights and justice? Would they prove their mothers not 
to be members of the human family? The question is not 
of Rights of Sex, but of humanity, and will fade into and 
be solved by that greater issue. 

SUMMARY OF RIGHTS. 

The child as an immortal intelligence, capable of infin- 
ite progress, has these self-evident rights: 

To air and water, which, requiring no artificial change, 
and incapable of ownership cannot be monopolized. 

He has the right to food, through the ministrations of 
Love. 

He has a right to be clothed and sheltered by the same 

He has a right to an education. Matured, he has a right 
to labor, in whatever direction he pleases, not conflicting 
with other's rights, and to the full, all his labor produces. 
He has the right to think, and as thinking can never inter- 



98 THE ETHICS OF SPIRITUALISM: 

fere with the thinking of others, he has here perfect free- 
dom. 

In speaking and writing, in putting thought into action, 
there is the limitation by the sphere of others. This lim- 
itation, however, is daily being pushed further away, and 
must ultimately be obliterated, except so far as the ameni- 
ties of culture and refinement dictate. Freedom of speech 
and of the press embrace their own purification. 



CHAPTER X. 



DUTIES AND OBLIGATIONS OF THE INDIVIDUAL, 

Rights presuppose Duties. Freedom is overshadowed 
by obligations. This is true in the highest sense without 
relation to theological dogmas. The system of duties and 
obligations created by the latter, are artificial and foreign 
to the constitution of man. Theoretical duty and obliga- 
tion to God or the gods, has been the foundation of relig- 
ion. Theology starting with a false conception of God, the 
religion arising from it has been vitiated and baseless. 
Christian, Jew, and Pagan place the same great stress on 
these subjects, and the priests and clergy are the interested 
parties to enforce acquiescence. 

DUTIES AND OBEDIENCE TO GOD. 

To obey God was the first requisite of a good man. As 
no one knew or could know what God's commands were, 
the priestly order declared them. To obey God was to 
obey the voice of the priest. Obedience was religion, and 
all temporal duties sank into insignificance by the side of 
this. To obey God in Egypt, meant to worship leeks and 
garlics ; in Rome, to obey the oracles of a multitude of gods 
and goddesses. To obey him, in Turkey, means to believe 
in Mohammed and Alcoran. To obey him, in Christian 
lands, is to believe wHh some one of the Christian sects. 

Perhaps more intolance has grown out of the idea of the 
necessity of compelling this arbitrary obedience than any 
other dogma. Allow an order of men to set themselves up 



A SYSTEM OF MORAL PHILOSOPHY. 99 

as God's chosen exponents, and give them power to enforce 
obedience, and there is nothing at which they pause. The 
decay of the priestly order, has shorn it of its power of en- 
forcing doctrines, but the dogma of obedience and duty to 
God remain, and form the foundation of the Christian re- 
ligion. Man must obey the laws of his being, and of the 
physical world or suffer. He cannot swerve a hair's 
breadth from implicit obedience without pain. To obey, 
is not a duty, it is a necessity. This, however, is not obe- 
dience, as understood by theologians. The will of God is 
expressed not in Nature, but the Bible. To believe the 
Bible, and obey the requirements of the church, is the obe- 
dience intended. We unqualifiedly say that man owes no 
such obedience, and has no such duties. Yet to assert 
this is the most heinous and unpardonable sin known to 
theology. 

SIN. 

Sin is not the refusal to meet these arbitrary demands, 
but the yielding to the impulses of the lower nature. Such 
impulses may appeal to the Reason for support, and even 
force it into alliance. Thus the drunkard before the habit 
is formed, may have a reason for gratifying his desire, and 
he will reason in his lowest depths of degradation. Desire 
itself becomes a reason. While virtue is obedience to right, 
reason and intelligence, sin may be regarded as the unre- 
strained action of the Appetites and Propensities. Their 
desire to do, is the reason therefore. 

HOW CAN WE OWE OBEDIENCE TO GOD ? 

The system of dogmatic theology grew up in an age 
which unquestioningly received the personality of God. 
When he was regarded as an Asiatic despot seated on an 
ivory throne, there was nothing contradictory in the sup- 
position that he personally demanded obedience and to 
disobey excited his anger. The slow relinquishment of 
the personality of God, has left this doctrine in a most 
precarious state, and with its fall, churchianity ceases to 
be. The personality of God is an irrational theory, for 
he must be infinite. If infinite, every part must be infinite. 
An infinite personality must have, for instance, an infinite 
hand, but if his hand is infinite, filling all space, then there 
will be no space for the remaining organs. Hence an in- 
finite personality is absurd. 

If God is a principle, or the sum of all principles, man 



100 THE ETHICS OF SPIRITUALISM: 

must obey such principles as are expressed in his physical, 
spiritual, mental, or moral constitution. He can know, 
nor be held amenable to none other. He owes no obedience 
to any arbitrary authority. This inference is equally ap- 
plicable to moral action, for man could not comprehend a 
moral principle better than a physical, unless expressed 
in his mental constitution. 

The nature of God, which has always formed a promi- 
nent feature in Christian ethics, has little interest in this 
discussion which relates not to God, but to man. Man's 
conception of God must grow out of himself, and be a part 
of himself. He can form no idea of a being of different 
qualities from himself. 

It is happy that theoretical views of the Deity do not 
necessarily affect the true system of morals. The grand 
foundations of Right and Justice have been slowly and 
painfully builded under innumerable forms of belief, and 
the moral sages of the world alike have bowed to the 
shrines of Ormuzd, Jupiter, Allah and Jehovah. The prob- 
lem of man's Rights and Duties is solved by a study of 
man himself, and not by foreign revelation. 

Hence admitting any theory of the existence of God that 
may be advocated, it follows that an infinite good being, 
such as God must be, desires man, his crowning effort, to 
perfectly fill the sphere in which he has placed him. To 
do so, man must be true to the principles of his constitu- 
tion, and this is the only obedience that can be required 
of him. 

FORGIVENESS AND PARDON FOR SIN. 

Out of this false idea of a personal God and man's rela- 
tions to him, has grown the equally false dogmas of pun- 
ishment and forgiveness. If God demanded obedience, 
he must have the means to enforce his commands. If man 
did not obey his artificial requirements, he must be pun- 
ished, and a Hell and Devil furnished the ready means. 
If man disobeyed, and then through fear of the terrible 
consequences, or the influence of friends returned to his 
allegiance, he must be allowed to make his peace with 
God and be forgiven. He could, in this manner, escape 
the consequences of his sins. Terrible is the significance 
and humiliating to the student of history, of the words, 
"peace with God," "lost from God," "reconciled into 
God," " atonement," " salvation through the blood of the 



A SYSTEM OF MORAL PHILOSOPHY. 101 

lamb," "regeneration," an endless vocabulary, in which is 
fossilized ignorance, credulity, folly, selfishness, fear and 
rascality. 

To sin, vet escape the penalty and become recon- 
ciled with God, are even to-day important problems in 
theology, at which sixty thousand ministers in the United 
States alone, and probably three times that number 
in the Christian, and ten times that number in the 
Pagan world, are engaged. Many a scape-goat has been 
invented before and since the one allowed by the children 
of Israel to depart into the wilderness, bearing the sins 
of the whole people. The Devil is the prompter of evil 
with Christians, and receives the blame for the sins of the 
world. Yet as man is claimed to be free and act from 
choice, if Satan is the instigator his victims receive the 
punishment. In ancient times men sought to atone for 
sin by sacrifices. If they had committed a great sin they 
made an unusual sacrifice. All the nations of antiquity 
offered human beings on their altars on great occasions. 
The Hebrew was not an exception, as the story of Isaac 
proves. Whatever is most pleasing to man, must be to his 
God, and hence he sacrificed whatever gave him joy. The 
best, the first of the flock or the harvest, the most useful, 
were for the Gods. Some of the South Sea Islanders 
knock out a tooth ; others cut off a finger. The Dervish 
lashes his bared back until gory or hangs himself upon 
iron hooks. The Christian blots joy and pleasure out of 
his life as unworthy. His God demands faith, prayer and 
change of heart. Man is lost from God and only by faith 
in Christ can be redeemed. 

It is unquestionable that man is just as God created 
him, and that he acts just as God desires him to act. Else 
God is not omnipotent nor good. Being infinite and omni- 
present, it is difficult to understand how we can become 
"lost" from him. 

It is not manly to pursue a sinful course for years and 
allow Christ to bear the punishment. His blood is as 
nothing to one noble act. 

If man cannot escape from sin, except in this manner, 
he is not worth saving. He in his best estate is a sneak 
and a coward. 

But is there an escape ? By faith and prayer ? There are 
fixed and unchangeable methods of action in the world, 



102 THE ETHICS OF SPIRITUALISM: 

and these are known as laws. If a man throw himself 
from a precipice, thus allowing gravitation to act unim- 
peded, will faith and prayer save him or prevent his being 
dashed on the rocks below ? If all the priests of Christen- 
dom stationed themselves on a railway track and should 
attempt to stop a train by simple prayer, their united voices 
would not have the weight of a single wave of a red flag. 
Prayer or faith will not prevent fire from burning, nor 
change in the least the order of the world. Moral sins 
may not be as tangible, but their influence and punish- 
ment are as certain. Slaughtered oxen, hecatombs of hu- 
man victims, or ten thousand bleeding Christs will not 
atone for the least transgression of the laws of our being. 
An infinite God can and has made the world sufficiently 
well not to be compelled to be nailed to the cross as an 
atonement. 

As long as man is imperfect, he will not fully comply 
with the laws of his being, and will suffer, not punish- 
ment, but the result of his imperfect compliance. He 
need not expect pardon or forgiveness. The words are not 
known in nature or with God. The true redemption is 
not through the blood of Christna, of India; a pilgrimage 
to the shrine of Mohammed, or the efficacy of Christ's 
blood, but by compliance with the laws of the physical 
and spiritual worlds. Knowledge of these is the true Re- 
deemer, the Savior of the world. To do right is a pass- 
,port to heaven. Then, forgiveness is unnecessary, and no 
one will feel in doubt whether they are of the " elect." 

The doctrine of the atonement is a pleasing one for 
crime, which can pursue its terrible career and at the end 
lift its hands in prayer and have all its sins washed away ! 
Rarely is there a murderer who does not slip through the 
hangman's knot into heaven ! A religion which teaches 
that a man may enjoy the fruits of sin and crime and then 
escape all punishment by obtaining pardon through Jesus 
Christ, is verily a religion of rascality offering a premium 
on vice. 

First, then, it we ask, can sin be pardoned, we answer, 
!No; for there is no pardoning power in the universe. To 
pardon, is to set aside the consequences of the laws trans- 
gressed, and as laws are unchangeable, this is impossible. 

DUTY OF PRAYER. 

The savage, when over-awed by the elements, cries out 



A SYSTEM OF MORAL PHILOSOPHY. 103 

in terror to their invisible personification, and implores 
the Being he thus creates in fancy, to asuage his wrath. 
This is the beginning of prayer. For it is necessarily a 
personal God, capable of changing the laws of nature and 
the order of events, who hears and is changed in his pur- 
pose by the prayer that is offered. If he is not thus chang- 
ed, if events follow a determined plan, prayer is useless. 
It is utterly impossible to appeal to an impersonal being, 
to a principle or combination of principles. Of the count- 
less millions of prayers made by Buddhist, Mohammedan 
and Christian, there is nothing cognizant to human in- 
telligence more certain than never one has been answered 
by a personal interference of any deity, or that any law of 
nature has been changed. This alone ought to silence 
forever the advocates of constant appeal to " the throne of 
grace." The duty of prayer depends entirely on the char- 
acter of its objects. If an autocrat sits on the throne of 
the universe, overseeing and superintending the move- 
ment of everything, and has commanded us to pray, then 
it is our duty to do so. If, however, there be no such au- 
tocrat, and we have no command, there can be no such 
obligation. We cannot implore principles and laws. 
Gravitation would draw a saint over a precipice despite 
his prayers with the same energy it would a stone. There 
is not a religionist in the world who dare to prove the ef- 
ficacy of piayer in the incontrovertible manner of such an 
appeal. To escape this unpleasant certainty, it is said, 
prayer does not affect the physical world, its province is 
the moral. This of course removes it where demonstration 
is far more difficult But it has been held, up to recent 
times, that prayer was efficacious in the material world. 
The Bible teaches it. The prayer of Joshua caused the 
sun and moon to stand still, and it is said that if one have 
faith, as large as a grain of mustard-seed, he might remove 
mountains with his prayers. The prayer of Jesus fed the 
multitude with five loaves and two fishes. Millions daily 
offer prayers, for like objects, expecting like results. The 
failure of tangible evidence has caused the withdrawal of 
this claim. 

It is now said that prayer, although it may not affect 
God, or change the order of nature, may react on the sup- 
plicant and thus become of great benefit. Prayer in time 
of mental or physical suffering, may confirm resignation, 



104 THE ETHICS OF SPIRITUALISM I 

which by passive endurance of the inevitable, is one of the 
most praiseworthy traits of human nature from a relig- 
ious stand-point. In this manner it is a source of strength. 
If God sends the chastening rod, it is not only folly, but 
sinful to repine. He expects no vain questioning of his 
goodness. To rebel, is a waste of strength ; to submit, is 
therefore a gain, and if the mind be actuated by a lofty 
idea, that we are under the special care of God, who, how- 
ever hard he may chastise, will hold us from harm, we are 
strong as Hercules, and invincible by the pangs of suffer- 
ing. To have this effect, it must proceed from belief. We 
must have faith or there will be no reaction. The child 
may receive pleasure in lisping to the unknown in which 
it trusts, and the savage feel that he is one with the great 
Spirit by his offerings of tobacco or game; they who have 
advanced beyond these early and mistaken ideas, can feel 
none of these emotions. They have no personality to 
which to appeal, and their knowledge of the inevitable ac- 
tion of causes, is not promotive of devotion. 

From a profound knowledge of nature we may have 
faith, confidence and perfect trust in the laws of the world, 
yet reverence we can not feel, for that implies personality. 
We cannot reverence impersonality, nor can we experi- 
ence piety, which is based on reverence and love of the 
divine personality, and a desire to obey his wishes. These 
qualities are artificial creations, and are not included in 
our understanding of duties and obligations. Not that 
whatever is beautiful or beneficial in these traits is lost, 
but that they are refined, and directed to their proper ob- 
jects. 

FAITH RESTING ON KNOWLEDGE. 

Faith the sheet anchor of religion, may be more firmly 
grounded on knowledge, than on ignorance, as the faith of 
a man is superior to that of a child. Sweet, indeed, is it 
for the worshiper to rest in the arms of implicit faith aris- 
ing from utter ignorance. There is no need of the effort 
of thinking. No doubts assail, no antagonism of theories; 
no jar to shake the implicit trust. Out of this lethargy, 
to advance is to awake. To awake is to be torn with doubts. 
Before knowledge is gained skepticism rules; terrible rule. 
The circle is completed by a return to faith, this time based 
on the knowledge of the laws of the world. They never 
change, and are without shadow of turning. Implicitly 



A SYSTEM OF MORAL PHILOSOPHY. 105 

can we trust them, and again the happiness of rest is ours. 
What has been gained by this mighty cycle which has 
taken mankind several thousand years to accomplish, 
and through which every individual runs ? We are pre- 
pared for the comprehension of truth and the infinite life 
before us. We have become active entities instead of 
passive receptacles. 

NATURAL DUTIES. 

Man has natural Duties and Obligations, dependent on 
his constitution. Rights are overshadowed by Duties. 
First and at the foundation of all others is that of the 
preservation of the integrity of his physical body. That 
condition is known as health, when every organ per- 
forms its natural function in perfect harmony with all 
the others. 

It is a crime to be sick. The knowledge of the effects 
of food, of activity and rest, and the elements which en- 
viron us will in the future teach how health may be 
conserved. 

So intimately is the spiritual blended with the physical, 
that the inharmony of the latter effects the former, and al- 
though at times special advancement is made under most 
painful physical conditions, we may state it as a rule that 
spiritual culture, rests on the harmony of physical func- 
ions. Hunger and thirst must be answered, and the wants 
of the body supplied before there is force for spiritual 
work. 

The preservation of health then is a cardinal duty, car- 
rying the obligation not only of carefulness, but of the ac- 
quisition of a knowledge of the laws on which it depends. 

OP SPIRITUAL CULTURE. 

The object of life is the perfection of spirit; hence the 
constant effort to exalt the life and devote it to noble pur- 
poses, the rule of Love, over the lower faculties is an un- 
ceasing duty. The care of the body is not only for the 
body's self, but for the spirit. If it stop with the body it 
fails in the primary object of human life. The processes 
and methods of superior culture need not be specially 
mentioned here as they form the context of this entire 
work. 

DUTY OP CHILDREN. 

To the ministrations of love, the child owes obedience. 
For a time it reverts to the ancestral savage and is gov- 



106 THE ETHICS OF SPIRITUALISM: 

erned by the same motives. Its intellect and morality 
are last to develop. It is ruled by impulse and emotion. 
It is presumable that its parents have outgrown this stage, 
and hence for the time their Reason and Conscience must 
guide the child. To these faculties the child owes obe- 
dience. It owes none to selfishness. It asks not for ex- 
istence—which is determined by the parents, and as this 
should be for the child's own sake, the latter owes allegi- 
ance only to the love which shall minister to its highest 
welfare. 

The present status of parents and children has no bear- 
ing as evidence against this, perhaps so considered, Uto- 
pian view. The biblical scheme of force, of brute coercion 
by the rod, has been discarded by those who have grown 
into the atmosphere of love. If the child cannot be influ- 
enced by love, it cannot by fear. It may yield to force, 
but there will be no change of mental qualities which 
make yielding of value. If severity governs, it fosters re- 
venge, hate, falsehood, and when the subjects escape they 
are either ruled by those faculties, or yield to uncontrolled 
license. As the parent treats the child, so will the child 
treat the parent in the after years, and when old age re- 
verses their relations, abuse, contumely and scorn will re- 
pay the harsh word and the use of the merciless rod. If 
parents are abused by their children, they receive what 
they themselves have sown. 

DUTY OP PARENTS. 

The culture of an immortal germ, and shaping its being 
for infinite uses, is one of the most momentous undertak- 
ings possible to contemplate. The parents are creators, 
and their creation is the highest object in nature. Their 
influence for good or evil will extend into remote ages. 
The rule by severity lingers in its strong last citidal, the 
prisons, and the old plea is made of strength meeting 
strength ; forgetting that the smallest strand of Love is 
stronger than the combined forces of Nature. 

The old idea entertained by parents that the child must 
obey them whatever they commanded, should be discard- 
ed. The parent's right of command is not based on par- 
entage, but on true superiority manifested in love. This 
is always obeyed, and obedience excites responding quali- 
ties in the child, as the rod used in anger, as it always is, 
excites anger, hate and revenge. 



A SYSTEM OF MORAL PHILOSOPHY. 107 

The position of parent is self-imposed, and should be 
assumed with a full sense of its vast obligations. The 
belief that children came by special providence, and 
were bestowed by God in preordained numbers, has 
been a potent cause of conjugal sin and misery. They 
should have existence through parental desire, and 
thus the first duty of the welcome of love be assured 
to them. That mankind have continued to grow bet- 
ter and wiser under the past system, which has forced 
children into the world by unbridled passion; received 
them as distasteful burdens, and given them the least 
possible attention, shows the presistency of human nature. 

The child should be welcomed with love and its birth- 
day held as a memorial. Its physical wants should be 
answered, and its spiritual growth cultured with unfalter- 
ing care. 

But, it is objected, this is fanciful, for how can the poor 
perform these offices, which even the wealthy fail to do 
f )r want of means! 

We answer, that this objection can not be urged against 
the principles we have stated. They cannot for a moment be 
doubted by any one. Their practical application depends 
on the political economist, and if society is in such a state 
that it cannot be just to its children, that state should be 
changed as soon as possible. 

It is not the number of children that gives strength to 
society, it is their perfection, and hence it is better to have 
one child thoroughly reared and cultured than the largest 
neglected family. 

DUTIES TO SOCIETY. 

These embrace a wide field, and are most diverse, and 
their statement in the light of true Spiritualism may seem 
Utopian. The present system of morals, if it may be called 
a system, practically is a system of selfishness. With rare 
exceptions the daily lives even of the most devoutly relig- 
ious show that they are atheists at heart and without faith 
in a future life. They order their conduct after the ad- 
vantages of to-day. 

If there were but one human being in the universe, that 
being might be an individual sovereign. There would be 
no reciprocal relations, for to him there could be no social 
or moral world. However strong the moral and social fac- 
ulties might be, they could not be called into action, because 



108 THE ETHICS OF SPIRITUALISM: 

there would be nothing to excite them. This is the isolation, 
and dreary waste of individual sovereignty, and impossible 
state. The individual cannot exist alone, millions of others 
must be forced around him, with whom he comes in con- 
tinuous contact. If he lose somewhat of his individuality 
he gains immeasurably by reciprocity. Without marriage 
he could know nothing of the joys of conjugal love; the 
union of heart, and purpose, of mind and body with an- 
other, or the refining, purifying power of such devotion. 
Without becoming a .parent, he would Dever know the 
happiness of caring for, and rearing children and the 
thousand joys they bring. He would remain cold, and 
emotionless, thinking only of his self. Paternity and ma- 
ternity call the entire range of those high qualities we 
have designated as Love into action, and although at first 
they are directed to the offspring, under proper guidance 
they expand outward to society at large. Without society 
the net-work of reciprocal relationship which forms a large 
share of earthly experience would remain unknown. 

Hence the individual is bound with adamantine cords 
to society, which he can no more break than he can 
blot out his own existence. His interests compel him to 
become cognizant of the condition of all humanity even 
to the furtherest isles of the sea. He is conscious that his 
own status depends on that of all others, and when he ele- 
vates from crime or ignorance, a single hapless being, he 
elevates the temperature of the moral atmosphere of the 
world. 

At present these relations are coarsely determined, and 
concretely expressed by laws. They were more rudely ex- 
pressed in the past Their execution is referred to brute 
force. This legal expression usually places the greatest 
stress of obligation on artifical requirements and ignores 
the great, underlying principles of social justice and 
morality, precisely in the same manner as religion places 
love of God first and love ot man second in importance. 
If we were to give the cause of the brutality of law, we 
should point to the fact that laws are fixed in comparison 
to growing humanity, and have descended from a savage 
past. Why they have not been ameliorated, is because the 
element of love has been excluded from legislation in the 
person of woman. Legislation because of this, is severe, 
and its logic is compulsion. 



A SYSTEM OF MORAL PHILOSOPHY. 109 

The artificial requirements of legislation, of custom and 
public opinion are burdens often grievous to be borne, 
and so far from it being a duty to observe them when they 
conflict with justice, it is a most imperative duty to 
discard them. 

DUTY AS A SOURCE OF STRENGTH. 

Allegiance to Duty, is among the strongest motives 
which actuate the human breast. History teams with ex- 
amples of high resolve, and self-sacrifice, and the ador- 
ation of succeeding ages. 

When Xerxes with the superb arm}- of Persia and allied 
hordes drawn from every province of his vast Empire, in 
all a million of men, marched on Greece, he considered 
the conquest of that little county, forming but a dot on 
the .map of his Empire, an easy task. He knew not the 
power of a single human soul fully imbued with the prin- 
ciples of justice, sense of honor and unfailing loyalty to 
duty. All his vast army drawn from the banks of the Oxus 
to the Ethopians beyond the confines of Egypt; from the 
iEgeanSea to remote India, gorgeous armor-clad Persians, 
lords of the realm, cotton-vested Indians, Assyrians with 
brazen helmets, painted Nubians; warriors seeking re- 
nown and delighting in carnage, rustics drawn from field 
and forest; Lycians armed with bows, Chaldeans with 
clubs, Sagartians with lasso and dagger, in solid phalanx 
with sword and spear; myriads on foot with escorts of 
clouds of Arabians on the fleet steeds and dromedaries of 
the desert; terrible engines for hurling masses of rocks 
with war-chariots from Babylon, Africa and India, all 
united and hurled in an avalanche of fury were not equal 
to the strength of one man encased in the armor of justice. 

The single arm of Leonidas, Sparta's noble King, ar- 
rested its course and shattered it in foam. He buckled on 
his armor and with a chosen band determined to die in 
the pass of Thermopylae, through which the Persians must 
pass in order to enter Greece. Xerxes hearing that a hand- 
ful of men disputed his progress, in a rage ordered forward 
the advanced portion of his army, and saw them hurled 
like spray from the rocks. He ordered forward the ten 
thousand Immortals, as the flower of Persia's chivalry was 
called. Carnage raged without avail until betrayed and 
surrounded, the heroic band, worn with incessant struggle, 
sorely wounded and with broken spears and swords, sank 



110 THE ETHICS OF SPIRITUALISM: 

beneath the weight of the countless hosts of their assail- 
ants. They never murmured nor shrank from their post. 
The heroic soul of Leonidas, trained to feel that life was 
nothing if dishonored by falsehood to trust, bore the bur- 
den of duty. He imbued his followers with his spirit. 
When one was requested to bear a message home, he re- 
plied: " Our deeds will tell all Sparta wishes to know." 

Who conquered ? Every Greek was slain, but the Per- 
sians met defeat. Xerxes appalled by such heroism, in- 
quired how many more such men there were in Greece, 
and was answered that Sparta alone had eight thousand 
who if occasion demanded, would do as Leonidas had 
done. The blood of that devoted band stained not the 
rocky pass in vain. The mountain became an altar, and 
all Greece saw its red stream, and smoke ascending to 
heaven. Her people became united as one soul, with gar- 
ments purified by this baptism of blood, and Salamis and 
Marathon, were sacrifices of the barbarian hordes offered 
to the manes of the heroes of Thermopylae. The myriads 
of invaders were powerless before antagonists who knew 
no law but of honor, and justice; no allegiance, but to the 
demands of duty ; no result but victory. 

One great soul comprehending, and unselfishly devoted 
to its duty is stronger than the combined forces of the 
world. 



CHAPTER XI. 



DUTY AND OBLIGATIONS OF SOCIETY. 

Nature is a remorseless strife of all against all; a pitiless 
struggle to annihilate competitors. Selfishness and the 
passions are the motives of action. This terrible struggle 
for existence by which the stronger dominate over the 
weak, is the Darwinian theory of ascent, and has been car- 
ried into history by his school, and made even an apology 
for cruelty, selfishness, and heartless disregard of conse- 
quences to the suffering individual. It is forgotten that 
when we reach the plane of humanity, a new and distinct 



A SYSTEM OF MORAL PHILOSOPHY. Ill 

element enters into the problem. The intellectual and 
moral nature of man is opposed to this antagonism. 
Such is the momentum it has acquired, it is not checked by 
a single effort. These faculties began their growth and 
have expanded in the midst of this struggle, until they have 
become controlling influences. The animal man may be 
impelled by animal forces, but the spiritual man, is gov- 
erned bv a higher code. It is no longer burly strength 
and rude selfishness; it is the gentle power of fostering 
love. The weak are no longer trodden under foot, the un- 
fortunate pressed to the wall, asylums and hospitals, are 
initial expressions of this grand love and benevolence 
which slowly is taking the place of force. 

There was a time when man existed in the wilds of the 
primitive world, an individual sovereign. What his con- 
dition then was, we may learn from the savage people 
who are nearly as low as he was then; such as the Austral- 
ians, the Bosjesman, and the forest tribes of Borneo, al- 
though none of these reach the depth of savageness of this 
autocrat of the forest. The branches of the trees furnished 
protection from wild beasts and from the storm, or a more 
secure refuge was sought in the clefts of the rocks. Man 
was alone. He lived exclusively for himself, like the ani- 
mals on which he preyed or which preyed on him, he had no 
thoughts beyond the gratification of his animal instincts. 

The history of civilization is the narrative of the pro- 
gress from this estate. The problem it presents is this : — 
" Given a brute, how shall brutality be eliminated and the 
divinely human evolved?" 

THAT PRE-HISTORIC MAN 

stands before us brawny, sinewy, with shaggy, unkempt 
locks, and scraggy eyebrows, from beneath which gleams 
black and sunken eyes, with cunning, shrewdness, treach- 
ery. The jaws are furnished with prominent teeth, 
covered with coarse sensual lips ; the nose is arched and 
prominent. Over his shoulders is thrown the skin of 
some wild beast, a club formed from a broken branch or a 
stone is his weapon of offense and defense. He is too 
selfish to be gregarious. He is a hermit in the wilds of 
the primeval world. His hand is against every other, 
and every other is against him. There are no tribes. 
He even shuns the ties of family. The mother clings to 



112 THE ETHICS OF SPIRITUALISM: 

her offspring until it is able to care for itself, and then 
the ties are broken never to be renewed. 

Such is the startling picture drawn by those who have 
explored the evidences of man's primitive history, passing 
downward through the lake deposits of Switzerland, which 
stands on the borders of historic time, into the beds of 
drift gravel, where the only vestiges remain to prove 
man existed in the days preceding the glacial epoch, a 
contemporary of the mastodon, at a time when Europe 
was a tropic clime inhabited by the lion, tiger, rhinoceros, 
and the elephant, and the flakes of flint so rude as to have 
passed, as natural fractures, washed from an older forma- 
tion. Out of the wreck of this forgotten world, whose ex- 
istence no one dreamed of fifty years ago, fragments 
of bone and broken skulls show the low estate of our an- 
cestral man. 

How vast the interval between that time and his first ap- 
pearance on the highlands of Asia in a vaguely defined 
historic character ! 

DAWN OF CIVILIZATION. 

The revelations of geology are here met by tradition. 
In the dawn we perceive the form of Chaldean civilizaiion, 
and beyond that, misty in outline, colossal in half-de- 
fined magnitude, older empires which arose and sank in 
the interminable waves of time. But the theological rec- 
ord, by no means touches the historic. Countless ages 
intervene which the fancy aided by the study of savage 
people, can not even outline. 

There is the prognathous skull of the drift, far from the 
lowest, for the ages have swept away all trace of number- 
less preceding races, itself indicative of great advancement. 
It is thick, marked with great knobs and ridges for the 
attachment of strong muscles. It is low browed, broad 
through the base, extended backward, drawn out forward 
into massive jaws. Then there is an impenetrable night. 
No footprint on the shore of the ages, no carved stone, no 
fossil bone, no record in brazen metal, nothing but silence 
and darkness, until suddenly in the gloomy twilight, num- 
berless ages thereafter we see looming in the mists on the 
plains of Assyria, empires of colossal proportions, with 
their walled cities, their written languages, their vast 
armies, from which comes the neighing of steeds and the 
roar of chariots. 



A SYSTEM OF MORAL PHILOSOPHY. 113 

That interval was filled with pain and struggle. The 
inherent principles of growth forced itself through the 
darkness of that night. It seized upon every advantage, 
and the strong came forward in the dreadful struggle for 
existence. 

There was the individual, alone, a hermit, skin clad, de- 
fenseless, except by his club. Around him the wilderness, 
filled with savage beasts, and what he most feared, men 
savage like himself. 

What were his family relations? If we pass to Aus- 
tralia we shall find a similar estate of savage life, a fossil 
remaining for our inspection. The Australian selects a 
hollow tree for his house and goes out to seek a mate. He 
prowls through the forest like a beast of prey. If he 
chance to meet a female, his courtship is of short duration. 
It is unmarked with the gentle amenites of civilized life. 
He stealthily approaches her, knocks her down with a 
club, and drags her to his rude retreat. 

This is the beginning of marriage, of the family, of the 
state. 

It will be perceived that should '.the affections become 
sufficiently strengthened to hold the family together, an 
incipient tribe would be founded, and deriving strength 
from mutual protection, they would possess great advan- 
tages over solitary individuals. 

GOVERNMENT RESTS ON THE FAMILY. 

It is said that governments all rest on the family, and 
truly the family is the origin and foundation, the centre 
of departure of the social fabric. 

I do not propose to sketch this progress, which of itself 
would require volumes, and I only introduce it to show 
the origin of that bundle of customs, beliefs, usuages and 
attainments, which we call society. I wish to introduce 
my discourse in this manner, that a reason may be given 
for the stand-point I occupy, regarding man as an evolu- 
tion from the lower world of life, and society as a higher 
evolution in the domain of the human mind, instead of a 
degraded being from a more perfect state, and the cus- 
toms of society as foreign, foisted upon him. 

This evolution is subject to fixed and unchangeable con- 
ditions. Diverse as the phenomena presented by society, 
seemingly conflicting and uncertain as are its individual 
phenomena, we are assured by those who have studied the 



114 



THE ETHICS OF SPIRITUALISM: 



perplexing diversity, that births and deaths, the phases of 
crime, the occupations of people, the intensity of their 
thought, their character is governed by unchanging laws. 

The whole social fabric is bound together with bonds 
no individual can break. 

Here is forced upon our attention the primary problem 
which law in the beginning attempted to define, from 
which has grown all legal enactments, and which forms 
the basis of history. 

RIGHTS OP SOCIETY AND THE INDIVIDUAL. 

This problem is to determine where the sphere and 
rights of the individual leave, and those of society begin. 
Here is the battle field of human rights, on which the 
combatants have fought with varying fortune since socie- 
ty began. The individual has been slowly and surely 
gaining on society, sometimes victorious and plunging 
into anarchy, sometimes defeated and made a slave. 

The understanding correctly of the obligations of socie- 
ty to the individual, or the opposite, the obligations of the 
individual to society, is the solution of this interminable 
problem. 

The primeval man as an individual sovereign, owed al- 
legiance to no one; he depended on himself. It is true 
his life was not complicated, a simple matter of eating 
and breathing, in which he was left alone. With the 
family, the tribe, the nation, and the acquisition of prop- 
erty, came the conflicting rights of the clan over its indi- 
vidual members. The latter were compelled to surrender 
more or less of their individual liberty for the good of all. 
In those ages of war, when might constituted right, the 
conqueror was ruler. The individual became nothing; 
the state, the rulers, everything. The effects of this con- 
dition still remain in all the nations of the old world. 
The government, be it an Emperor, a King, a Monarchy, 
is absolute over the individual. 

AMERICAN SOLUTION OP THE PROBLEM. 

In America, we consider this order changed, and our 
boast is that the government flows from the consent of the 
governed, and is an expression of their will. Yet we can 
not change what has been inwrought by the ages, with a 
word. Revolutions are not the work of a day, but of cen- 



A SYSTEM OF MORAL PHILOSOPHY. 115 

turics. If the active force of coercion has ceased, there is 
a force still stronger and more subtile brought to bear, that 
of public opinion. They who advocate the sovereignty 
of the individual overlook, or too lightly estimate the 
bonds which unite society since the time that the family 
held itself together, because it derived great advantage in 
the struggle for existence; by so doing new obligations 
were assumed, and as the welfare of all depended on the 
actions of each one, they became interested in the welfare 
of each of its members. Society was organized laws 
framed to define these various and conflicting rights, con- 
stantly becoming more and more complex as new interests 
were involved, until the present time, when the best meta- 
physicians are led astray in thsir attempts to reconcile the 
conflicting claims. 

FABLE OF THE WHEEL. 

There has supervened such a perfect mutual depend- 
ence, society has become so thoroughly blended and 
unitized, that the whole body is intensely sensitive to the 
disturbance of its individual members. The depression 
of one trade, for instance, affects many others. One occu- 
pation cannot suffer without all others feeling it more or 
less. The most insignificant pursuit has its own field and 
is woven by golden threads into the most extensive. No 
one can withdraw without damage to the others. Such is 
this close connection, reminding, one of the fable of the 
coach-wheel, the parts of which got into dispute as the 
coach was descending a mountain, which was the most 
essential ; the hub claiming that It was the central pivot, 
the spokes that they gave it extent, the felloes that they 
gave circumference, and the tire that it bound all together. 
When they waxed warm in argument, the linch-pin cried 
out, it was overlooked, " Ah, my little fellow, what are you 
good for ?" they all cried. 

" Well, I'll show you, for I will drop out and we will see 
what will become of you." So it dropped out, the wheel 
came off, and the coach dashed over a precipice. 

Those who would centralize government and grant it 
control over everything, argue after this fashion : The in- 
dividual is a brick in the edifice, and lives not for himself 
but for that edifice. 



116 THE ETHICS OF SPIRITUALISM: 

THE TENDENCY OP CIVILIZATION 

has been to place greater and greater safeguards around 
the rights of the individual, assuring him safety of person 
and property, and freedom of thought. To do this is the 
essential function of government. It guards the individ- 
ual from encroachments, giving him liberty to do as 
he pleases at his own cost, so far as he does not interfere 
with similar rights of others. In the United States it has 
been held as a maxim, that the best government was that 
which governed least ; in other words, which allowed the 
greatest liberty to the individual and the minimum of 
control to itself. Our theory of government is that the in- 
dividuals composing it unite for the purpose of mutual 
aid and protection. This end is best accomplished by 
allowing each individual his own chosen sphere of ac- 
tivity, and bestowing on the general government the power 
to compel their members to grant the same liberty they 
demand for themselves. If they will not confine them- 
selves to their own spheres and trespass on the rights of 
others, the government must carry out the will of its com- 
ponent members, and restrain the offender. In no other 
case, can it rightly deprive any of its members of liberty, 
and it can do this only because the individual has shown 
himself incapable of governing himself. In such cases 
the object should not be vengeance or punishment, but re- 
form, and in this light our present prison system is a blot 
on the fair face of our civilization. We do not reform, we 
punish. The government promises protection to its citi- 
zens from the criminal class, and most justly removes the 
right from the individual to become his own avenger. 
Having done this, it is obligatory on it to render the de- 
tection of crime certain, justice unflinching, and pro- 
vide such conditions for the offender as will tend to his 
reformation, instead of plunging him deeper in crime. 
The sentencing of criminals for a fixed term, to emerge at 
its termination to resume their career of crime, is a farce. 
A man commits robbery, and is sentenced for a certain 
time, does the judge or any one else expect he will issue 
from his cell at the end of that time a better man, or less a 
rascal ? No ! It is not even so stated. It is so many years 
punishment, having received which, the debt of justice is 
canceled. 
If a man will injure others, he should be confined where 



A SYSTEM OF MORAL PHILOSOPHY. 117 

lie cannot do so, and surrounded by the best educational 
influences, and not allowed freedom until it is apparent 
he has met with a reformation. 

EDUCATION. 

As education lies at the basis of progress, it is of vital 
importance that every individual become educated. This 
is a matter in which all are equally interested, and it be- 
comes obligatory on the State, to assume its control. As 
the government discards religious influences, that educa- 
tion must be strictly secular, and whenever it is otherwise, 
the government transcends its just powers. Experience 
has taught that it is cheaper to educate the children than 
to punish the criminals, but half the potency of that train- 
ing is lost, if accompanied with sectarian bias. The Pro- 
testants at the reformation opened wide the doors of learn- 
ing, and have never been able to close them. The Cath- 
olics recognize its value, but govern the school by the 
church, and dictate what shall and what shall not be 
taught, Human foresight and reason is good enough in 
the priest but cannot be trusted in the layman, a logic 
only correct by bestowing on the priest peculiar qualities 
by virtue of his office. 

It is of incalculable value to all that education should 
be universal; as this is the only safeguard against decay 
and degradation, it becomes obligatory on society to open 
free schools, at which all can receive the benefit of in- 
struction. It is essential therefore that sectarianism un- 
der none of its insidious forms, shall be taught, for then 
the State enters the province of individual beliefs. Its 
course of instruction should be exclusively confined to the 
facts of science, and demonstrated knowledge. 

The question at present forcing itself on public atten- 
tion, of compelling attendance at the public schools, here 
claims a hearing. There is no doubt but the issue was 
first broached by the Catholics, in the hope of breaking 
down our present system, nor can it be gainsaid that if 
free schools be founded for the purpose of educating all 
alike, and especially for the wants of those who cannot 
provide for themselves, the object is defeated if these do 
not attend, and in practice those who need instruction the 
most, and by whose attendance society would be most 
benefited, are the ones who stay away. 

It is not the concern of society where an individual ob- 



118 THE ETHICS OF SPIRITUALISM: 

tains his education; it is concerned only in its being ob- 
tained. Hence it may consistently require every child at 
a certain age to pass examination in prescribed branches 
of knowledge; as at fourteen to be able to read, write and 
pas3 creditably iu arithmetic, grammar and geography, 
and hold the parents or guardians responsible. 

It is true the rights of society here closely tread on 
those of the individual, and there is no more tender point 
than the rights of a parent over his child. But the parent 
has no right to allow his child to become a burden to the 
society which must receive him, if he can avoid so doing, 
and hence if he will not educate it himself, he must be 
compelled to do so. 

FAMILY BELATIONS. 

In this field lie all the family relations, out of which 
society itself originally sprang, and which it seeks to sup- 
port. When society attempts the regulation of marriage, 
it deals with the most subtle and complex relations of hu- 
man beings. The reactionary element demands freedom 
in this relation, claiming it to be a contract entered into 
by two parties, and should be as readily canceled by the 
consent of the parties. They overlook the fundamental 
principle involved which distinguishes marriage from all 
other contracts. In the latter, if broken, reparation can 
be made ; the damages can be estimated in dollars, and 
the obligation canceled. In the former, each party changes 
even the form of their lives, under the inducement of the 
pledges of the other. The union is valuable because it is 
expected to be permanent. If these pledges be broken 
there can be no reparation. Furthermore, unlike other 
contracts, it looks forward to a third party or parties, as 
much or more deeply affected as the principals. It is for 
the protection of these, and the rights of the individuals 
themselves, that society is under the obligation to inter- 
fere. 

Its own rights are also involved. Experience has shown 
that civilization and purest morality are cultivated best by 
the family. Around the hearth cluster the beatitudes of love, 
friendship, and lofty aspiration. Monogamic marriage 
purifies and ennobles, and by it the parents are compelled 
to bear the burdens they assume when they enter that 
relation. The duty of the parent plainly is to care for and 
educate his children, and only when he fails to do so un- 



A SYSTEM OF MORAL PHILOSOPHY. 119 

der the pressure of circumstances lie cannot control, is he 
justified in casting his burden on society. As this con- 
tingency may arise at any time, society in self-defense is 
obliged to surround the family institution with such re- 
strictions as experience has taught essential to the best 
interests of the individual and the State. 

The mistake committed, which renders the objections 
of innovators plausible, is placing man and woman in an 
unequal relation before the law, a remnant of barbarism ; 
of marriage by the dub, as illustrated by the Australian, 
and the creation by public opinion, another relic of an 
early age, of a different code of morality for man than 
woman. 

CENTRALIZATION. 

Against the general tendency towards individualization, 
recently there has set a counter current in favor of central- 
ization. It was introduced by the war, and presses itself 
continually into notice. 

It would place all the railroads, telegraphs, canals, 
banks, etc., in the hands of the general government, which 
expresses society in its most concrete form. This central- 
ization if correct in principle, should not rest here, but 
embrace all great manufacturing interests, and that engine 
of power — the press. Then society would be everything; 
with such an immense patronage, a popular election would 
be impossible, and we should have a tyranny to which the 
monarchies of Europe would be liberty itself. 

REMNANT OP THE OLD IDEA. 

The old idea that the government should direct the in- 
dividual, is a constant bane. We have men who should 
know better, constantly saying that the government should 
do this or that, charging it as the cause of hard times, 
panics, strikes and corruption, when should the govern- 
ment act on such suggestions, it would become a despica- 
bly tyranny. A representative government cannot be bet- 
ter than the aggregate of its component members. It can 
not become corrupt, if these be pure. If rascals as a rule 
obtain office, it is because of a rascally constituency. 
Government has no right to do what individual enterprise 
can do better. Its province is to protect such individuals 
in their enterprises, and open wide the door of competi- 
tion, by forbidding monopoly. 

In matters of conscience, in religion, when nothing can 



120 THE ETHICS OF SPIRITUALISM: 

be demonstrated, and each individual is proportionally 
tenacious of his opinion, it is obligatory on the State to 
allow absolute liberty; guaranteeing all in their rights 
and forbidding interference of opposing beliefs. Because 
certain beliefs honestly held, are opposed to those popu- 
larly accepted, or because they may be deemed immoral, 
does not justify interference. Everyone must be his own 
judge in this matter. 

Take for instance the ordinance of Sunday. It is well 
to rest one day in seven, and on physiological grounds the 
custom of its observance is a good one. In order to yield 
its full benefit it must be general, that the labors of one 
may not compel that of another. 

Yet to make it a sacred day, and by legal enactment 
compel every one to observe it, transcends the sphere of 
the State. The individual is the best judge of his own 
actions on observing that day, and his methods. In the 
days of the Puritans, who strove as thoroughly as they 
could to chase pleasure and joy out of the world, every 
other place of resort was closed, that there might be no 
excuse from the church. It has taken two hundred years 
to outgrow that bias, and yet the museums and public li- 
braries refuse to open their doors on the only day the 
laboring people can enjoy them. 

THE DANGER. 

The great danger which now threatens the liberties of 
this country is the insidious attack on the constitutional 
guarantee of freedom of conscience. The evangelical 
party who are engaged in this bigoted movement, unknow- 
ingly join hands with the Catholics they detest, and to- 
gether form a strong force, which the utmost might of lib- 
eralism will find it difficult to stay. This movement has 
the destruction of the common schools at heart, and with 
them perish civil liberty. 

True government is that which allows the individual 
the utmost freedom, and exercises that power which is 
necessary to guarantee this freedom, and execute those 
measures which society as a whole can better perform 
than the individual. The obligations of society end here, 
and the sphere of the individual begins. 



A SYSTEM OF MORAL PHILOSOPHY. 121 

CHAPTER XII. 

RIGHTS OP GOVERNMENT 

The rights of government are based on eternal justice. 
If it be said it rests on the consent of the governed, then 
this must mean that the governed consent to the require- 
ments of justice; if on the will of the majority, then that 
it is presumable the majority comprehend justice better 
than the minority. But the minority may be in the right, 
and there may be such an occurrence as a single man 
standing on justice opposed to a whole realm. 

It is not correct to say government is based on the free 
consent of the governed, for it is not, more than the right 
of Reason and Conscience to control the mind rests on 
the consent of the lower faculties. 

Those who make repressive laws necessary, and are con- 
trolled by them, never have consented to such laws and 
would not had they been given the choice. The entire 
criminal class rebel against government, and would annul 
all repressive laws, so far as they are concerned. That 
such government exists is because a large proportion of 
the community have so decided, and their decision is di- 
rectly against the wishes of the class they seek to govern. 
It is the same under all forms of government, autocratic 
or extreme republicanism ; for in the latter the majority 
force obedience on the minority. 

In a society where the criminal class were in majority, 
repressive laws might be enacted, as a homage of vice to 
virtue, but they could not be enforced. The criminal ma- 
jority would bid defiance to legal control. Hence the 
laws as the expression of a few wise and good men, may 
be far better than the society, they are, however, powerless 
unless their execution is in the hands of efficient power, 
which cannot exist in a republican government unless a 
majority are on the side of virtue. In fact, until this be 
the case, a republic cannot exist. A free government can 
not maintain itself unless a strong majority of its individ- 
uals are able to govern themselves. Until this stage is 
reached, autocracy and monarchy, are the only rule capable 
of holding, with strong hand, in necessary restraint, the 
dominant vicious element, and thus giving protection to 
the weaker portion. 



122 THE ETHICS OF SPIRITUALISM: 

The worst form of tyranny, although itself given over to 
propensities, depends for its existence on the observance 
of the higher laws by those it governs. The tyrant may 
hold himself amenable to no law but his desires, but the 
people are controlled by laws fixed by the wisest of the 
realm. If the tyrant introduces his own vices into his 
government, his reign is brief. It is this fact which has 
made monarchy an essential means of progress. How- 
ever, it may have failed, as a whole it has followed the 
course expressed in the law of the higher governing the 
lower. It has attempted to enforce right, with might, in 
a rude, coarse fashion, and because it has done so, it has 
had the right to rule. The freest republicanism attempts 
the same. Society has advanced so far that a sufficient 
number of its members have acquired the power of self- 
government. The monarch is replaced by the majority. 
The right of government rests on the necessity of restraint, 
which makes any government for a savage or half-civilized 
societey better than none, and the purpose to compel obe- 
dience of the lower to the higher faculties ; of selfishness, 
to benevolence; of hate to love; of individuality to patriot- 
ism ; of animality to morality. It will thus become evi- 
dent that all governments from tyranny to republicanism 
rest on the same foundation. Tyranny or absolute mon- 
archy is the first step out of barbarism, and becoming more 
and more limited prepares the way for republicanism. 
The former will exist until the preparation is gained. 
When the majority in the latter form of government, tem- 
porarily advocate injustice as is sometimes the case, it be- 
comes one of the most arbitrary forms of tyranny. 



CHAPTER XIII. 



DUTIES OP SOCIETY TO CRIMINALS. 

True government is the concrete expression of the will 
of society; practicallv based on the free consent of the 
majority. If we ask why it is established at such sacrifice 
and cost to the individual, there is one answer, and only 
one, for protection. It guarantees the protection of life, 
liberty and property. This is the principle end of free 



A SYSTEM OF MORAL PHILOSOPHY. 123 

government, by the people and for the people. If it ex- 
ceeds this sphere, and grasps the rights or the property of 
the individual, it is robbery. If it fails to give protection 
it is illegitimate. If it is made an object of itself, it be- 
comes dangerous, and one step removed from tyranny. 

A true republican government, is the expressed will of 
the governed; and its every provision must be for the good 
of the whole. As government means restraint, we shall 
find that this restraint rests on those who do not control 
themselves, society is compelled to protect itself against 
the appetites and propensities of its members who do not 
or cannot restrain themselves. Were all governed by 
morality and knowledge, repressing laws were unneces- 
sary. A complicated portion of the machinery of govern- 
ment, is set in motion for protection against fraud, rascal- 
ity and crime. It has been in operation since immemo- 
rial time. Under whatever form of government, tyranny, 
monarchy, theocracy, or republican, almost the same iden- 
tical code has been accepted. The individual who has 
broken the law, has been dealt with an iron hand. The 
way of the transgressor has been hard. 

The Mosaic code, of an " eye for an eye," flourishes 
even to the present day, despite that Christianity claims to 
be founded on charity and love. Jesus taught if a man 
strike you on one cheek, turn the other also, but Moses 
taught, and the law retains. If a man strike you, strike 
him back as hard as you can. Our criminal laws are 
founded on Moses and not on Christ, Theology is to 
blams for their cruelty, and the injustice they work, by 
the false doctrine it has taught, that man being a " free 
agent," sinned from choice, and must be punished, and 
punished eternally. As the sin was in the will, that must 
be broken, and the sentence of the law was vengeance. 
When it speaks of Justice even, it is vengeance, not justice 
that is implied. The law to-day depends on force in the 
same manner it did in Moses' time. It is backed with 
jails, state prisons, penitentiaries, dungeons and gibbets. 
There has been no change in its spirit. 

This must all be changed. Fear may prevent, it never 
reformed. It has held undivided sway and the result is 
not flattering. Men rob and are false and murder under the 
very shadow of the scaffold. Hanging is a sacrilegious 
mockery, which serves to make lite cheap, and to erect 



124 TELE ETHICS OF SPIRITUALISM: 

new gibbets. Society is protected imperfectly, both in 
life and property. The prisons overflow, ani daily the 
gallows stretches its gaunt arm, and only a few raise their 
voices, that this is not the best possible method of dispos- 
ing of human beings! 

There is a criminal class. They are human, but unfor- 
tunately constituted. They cannot be trusted. They en- 
croach on the rights of others, and thus show that the}' are 
dangerous to allow at large. Whenever one of these com- 
mits a crime, he is seized by the law, and sentenced for a 
fixed term of years at hard labor in the penitentiary. The 
judge grades the time to deal justly, that is to administer 
the proper punishment! But why do we punish? Is it 
for the good of the individual, or society ? Nature never 
punishes for the sake of punishment. To do so is the 
height of cruelty and folly. It cannot change the results 
of the crime, and at most can only by fear prevent its re- 
currance. The unfortunate criminal remains the same, or 
is made worse. He expiates his offence and is then free. 
He was at first a dangerous individual to trust at large, he 
has become still more dangerous. He was systematically 
brutalized. His hair was cropped, his clothes changed 
for prison stripes, he was compelled to labor for others, 
his diet reminding him of his ignominous position, cut 
ofl from all news from the world, literally buried alive. 
This has not tended to reform him. Now he is again free 
the mark of Cain is on his brow. He goes into the world, 
moneyless, friendless, characterless, unless it be with an evil 
repute. No one will employ him, he must steal or starve. 
He may go forth with high resolve, but it will be blown 
away by the rude contact with heartless life, and in des- 
peration another crime will blacken the dark annals, and 
again punishment will avenge injured rights. 

The law and the theology on which it rests have no faith 
in man, nor belief in his immortality. Is he an im- 
mortal being, with the grand and infinite possibilities 
which form the horizon of such a being; his earth-life 
one of growth and reform from the bondage of desires, or 
a vicious brute to be hung or branded with infamy to de- 
ter other brutes from like cause ? If anything is self-evi- 
dent, it is that this system has completely failed, as appeals 
to the lower nature always must, for in their spirit they 
degrade instead of elevate. 



A SYSTEM OF MORAL PHILOSOPHY. 125 

If there is any law of moral duty written in letters of 
light, 30 that he who runs may read, it is the obligation 
we owe to the unfortunate, and the undeveloped. Picture 
to ourselves a pure and loving angel in the judicial chair, 
sentencing a wretched being to prison or the gallows! 
The picture would be branded as a falsehood. We antici- 
pate the estate of the angel; to become as pure and loving 
we feel is our birth-right. Is not that which every in- 
stinct revolts against referring to the angel equally ab- 
horent when practiced by ourselves ? 

Do not say this is idle sentimentalism. We advocate 
the most practical system, which will give certain results 
of the highest order. We by no means would allow the 
criminal the freedom which he forfeits by his disregard 
of the rights of others. He is incapable of self-control, he 
must be controlled. How? By temporary imprisonment 
and compulsion to work for others? By binding with in- 
famy? Rather by confinement so that he cannot injure 
others, and intellectual and moral education. This con- 
finement not to be a definite punishment for a certain 
crime, but the crime indicating incapacity of control, he 
is to remain until he gives assurance of being able to gov- 
ern himself, be that time one year or a life-time. 

Under the present system, when a convict emerges from 
the gate of the penitentiary, does any one claim that he is 
reformed ? Is it not known that with rare exceptions the 
punishment has hardened him in crime, and he is more 
dangerous than before? Why should he be reformed, 
when there has not been the least effort made to reform 
him ? Deprived of books, of papers, of conversation even 
with his fellows, often confined in a solitary cell, how is 
it possible for the higher faculties to gain that activity 
which alone can assure him a better life? 

There are asylums in which the blind, by patient in- 
struction learn difficult arts, and to read with their deli- 
cate sense of touch. There are others where humane men 
learn the deaf mute to converse by signs, and thus unbind 
the fetters of the struggling spirit. And others yet 
undertake the almost hopeless task of instructing the 
idiotic, and are rewarded by seeing the dormant intellect 
quicken and gleam with the inspiration of thought. 
Numberless asylums for the insane are conducted, with- 
out stint of cost, that reason dethroned may again assert 



126 TIIE ETHICS OF SPIRITUALISM: 

her rule. Is the case of the criminal more hopeless ? Why 
treat him with such vindictive hate ? He, too, is capable 
of culture, and in a far superior measure to any of the 
others. His is a species of moral idiocy and insanity, re- 
quiring the same benevolent training, and loving charity. 
The prison should not be a rack of torture, but a school 
of reform. By this means life and property would be far 
more secure than at present, for at least one-half the crimes 
are committed by those who have been set at liberty from 
our prisons. The portion of life these convicts spend out- 
side the prison walls is brief compared to that which they 
are incarcerated. Nor would the prisons be more over- 
crowded, for those who were sent out would not return, 
and the influence of the whole system would be to lessen 
crime. 

GOVERNMENT SHOULD GIVE ASSURANCE. 

If government attempt, as it does, to assure protection, 
let it make its assurance good. Now if a robbery is com- 
mitted, the robber is convicted and sentenced, but govern- 
ment attempts no restitution of the lost property. It 
taxes the loser for protection and grants none. Justice 
demands such restitution, and that the government look 
to the robber for its rendition. He should be employed 
and the proceeds of his labor used to make good the 
amount he appropriated. 

The last crime we have to consider is the capital offense, 
which has been unflinchingly punished with death. 
While we maintain that society has the right to employ 
such means as is necessary to protect itself, we hold that 
it cannot justly resort to severest means when others will 
answer the same purpose. By capital punishment it ig- 
nores the sacredness of human life, the very offense it 
strives to punish. It does not lessen crime, and hence can 
not plead intimidation. As conducted in the jail yard, 
with priestly confessors it is a ghastly farce little removed 
from a brutal butchery. 

The sacredness of human life should be upheld firmly 
that even the murderer should not forfeit it. He should 
lose his liberty, and safety may demand the forfeit per- 
petual. 

If the death penalty is for the purpose of vengeance, or 
if it is for intimidation, hanging is too mild a form of exe- 
cution. The most terrible tortures and excruciating meth- 



A SYSTEM OF MORAL PHILOSOPHY. 127 

ods should be used so as to appal the stoutest heart. This 
was done in olden times, and resulted in stimulating in- 
stead of frightening. Crime grew out of the punishment 
of crime. In those States that have abolished capital 
punishment, crime has decreased. These, however, have 
not gone far enough. They have only reached what may 
be called a passive stage, which simply places the crimi- 
nal where he can do no harm, and do not trouble them- 
selves with his culture. The priest is their reliance to 
work a change of heart, which when pronounced, is prac- 
tically denied by the fastened bolts of the prisoner's door. 
Humanity can know but one duty in the premises. It 
may shrink from it now but the future is full of promise. 
Even the murderer, is immortal and sometime, will be- 
gin an advancement which shall culminate in angelic ex- 
cellence. The Laws of the universe work out their own 
purpose. We need not trouble ourselves to avenge their 
transgression. We can with justice protect ourselves, 
and in doing so work directly in their channel. 



CHAPTER XIV. 



THE DUTY OP SELF-CULTURE. 

It is said the chief end of man is "To glorify God and 
enjoy him." To glorify God is his paramount duty, which 
absorbed all others. There is a duty which precedes this, 
however, or else is the same expressed in different words, 
and that is to glorify himself. By glorify we mean the 
glory of a noble well spent life. If man lives not for this 
end, his life is aimless and profitless. The necessity of 
education is felt by all who have thought on the subject. 
The free school where all can receive the rudiments of 
knowledge, are justly regarded as the bulwark of liberty, 
yet there is a broad difference between the learning of the 
schools and the true culture most desirable. Statistics 
show that the criminal class are not all unlearned, and 
some of the most flagrant are thoroughly educated so far 
as the schools go. Learning to read, to write, to read for- 
eign tongues, or becoming adept in science, may leave the 
mind beyond these acquirements, a barren waste. What 



128 THE ETHICS OF SPIRITUALISM: 

is usually considered as an education is only the means 
whereby an education may be acquired. Even the col- 
legiate course is rudimentary and when finished, the grad- 
uate is no more than poorly prepared with means where- 
by he may become truly educated. To say of such that 
they are educated, is like calling one an artist, because he 
has the materials with which to paint a picture, or chisel 
a statue. He has the means but it rests with himself how 
he uses them ; whether he produces a daub or a Raphael, 
a grotesque caricature, or an Apollo Belvidere. The par- 
rot learning of the schools, which takes no deep root in 
the mind, may be used, and more frequently is, by the 
lower as well as by the higher nature. Then we see the 
anomally of learning making men worse instead of better. 

This shows the necessity of a radical change in our edu- 
cational methods and the ideas on which they are founded. 
Man was not created for the exclusive development of any 
one faculty. If he ignores this fact he becomes onesided, 
deformed and dwarfed. Education should embrace the 
entire circle of human capabilities, and if it falls short of 
this it is proportionally defective. The ordinary routine of 
the schools ignores the body. The student graduates 
with enfeebled health, and thus in getting knowledge, has 
destroyed the means, by which it can be made practical 
and effective. 

On the other hand, the laborer by unremitting physical 
toil almost entirely ignores mental and moral culture. 
The result of this onesided activity may be seen in the de- 
formed characters everywhere to be met with. 

PHYSICAL CULTURE. 

As the body is the instrument whereby the spirit ex- 
presses itself, its perfect development is important not 
only to earthly existence, but the best spiritual well-being. 
Health is the greatest good to the body. It is the har- 
monious activity of all its organs, performing all their 
functions each in its sphere. Disease is the reverse of 
this, and comes not as a punishment, but as a result. 

As soon as the mind perceives the organic laws of the 
body, morality reaches down to their observance. There 
are instances where the mind seemingly has arisen above 
physical limitations, and while disease has slowly de- 
stroyed the body, it has shone bright and clear as a star ; 
yet these are exceptional cases. Disease weakens phys- 



A SYSTEM OF MOliAL PHILOSOPHY. 129 

ical power, and suppresses spiritual energy. The spirit at 
best has a heavy weight to carry, and would be so much 
the better by casting it aside. As long as it remains in the 
body it is subject to its limitations. The body is an in- 
strument perfectly adapted to bring it in contact with, and 
give it control over matter, but may become through dis- 
ease a clog to the eagle, and bind its pinions to the earth. 

To preserve the health, should be the first effort. Every- 
thing detrimental to it should be regarded as only a step 
removed from immorality. This subject falls under the 
law of the Appetites, as already discussed. They should 
each be gratified within the limitation of their sphere, and 
the moment any one of these transcends its sphere, suf- 
fering and disease result. 

We would not be understood as teaching that health re- 
quires extra physical development, which may be carried 
to an extreme, and defeat entirely its purpose. The mus- 
cles of the gymnast are too often enlarged at the expense 
of his mind. Muscles half as strong may be quite as 
healthy. 

The child should be taught, first of all, that labor is not 
only noble and honorable, but a duty. That as everything 
is created by labor, he must be too magnanimous to live 
by the toil of others. It must be instilled into the mind 
that it is as noble to plow, and sow, as to pull the oar; to 
swing the sledge, as the dumb-bells. 

The body as the temple of the spirit should be regarded 
as holy and too sacred to be desecrated by any vile habits. 
The man who thus regards his earthly temple, will not 
dare defile its purity. He will regard it as an obligation 
to maintain its functions to the utmost of his power. 

Disease must not be regarded as a punishment. It is an 
inevitable consequence, not inflicted as a retribution. 
While many of its causes inhere with the body, the great 
proportion are of the mind. When properly directed the 
will can rise above, and entirely cast them off. This is the 
right method of treatment. The remedy should be applied 
to the mind in most cases where now only the body is re- 
garded. 

The Will can possess a far greater control over the body 
than it does at present Instances are recorded where in- 
dividuals could arrest the circulation, and the pulsations 
of the heart, and restore the same by their Wills. These 



130 THE ETHICS OF SPIRITUALISM: 

extreme cases show what is possible for all. From the 
control of the excretions and secretions, is scarcely a step 
to molecular changes in the tissue itself, on which health 
and disease depend. It is possible for the Will to become 
so strong as to dominate over the body and control its ac- 
tivities. This is the new medical science of the future, 
when drugs will be regarded as the coarse expedients of a 
rude age. 

As the spirit constantly gains power over the body from 
generation to generation, there can be no limits set ex- 
cept where it gains perfect control. That this is possible 
is shown by the degrees of Will and instances of its tri- 
umph. 

The martyr smiles on burning coals, and feels not the tor- 
tures which rend the limbs asunder. There is that state of 
spirit ecstacy, of freedom and triumph, which changes 
physical pain to spiritual pleasure. When such control is 
gained and directed by the knowledge which finally will be 
its accompaniment, the body will no longer be a fetter to 
the spirit. It will be built up beautiful and perfect, and 
the most poisonous substances — the venomous fang and 
sting, the malarious atmosphere, the changes of tempera- 
ture, all forms of disease will be harmless against the 
strongest force in nature, the human Will. 

Such is the perfection of physical culture, when the 
body is under absolute control of the Will. How imper- 
fectly it is at present, our educational methods show. The 
child in learning to walk, is taking its first lessons in Will 
over its limbs. Its eflort to speak, is a struggle of the Will 
to control the tongue. In learning to write, the ideal forms 
of the letters are in the mind, the difficulty is to move the 
fingers correctly. The same is true in music, to execute 
which excellently, training must begin early and be con- 
tinued for a life-time. And yet after all this practice the 
Will never gains perfect control. Even in walking and 
speaking this is quite apparent. The efforts of the elocu- 
tionist shows how great an improvement can be made in 
speech, what fine tones and subtile distinctions may be pro- 
duced, yet this is only a prophecy of what is possible. 

The dancer shows what command the Will can gain 
over the feet,, and the skilled penman and artist what it can 
gain over the hand. 

That it has not similar mastery over other organs and 



A SYSTEM OF MORAL PHILOSOPHY. 131 

functions, is because it has not been educated in their di- 
rections. 

It is thus apparent that education begins with the body, 
which must be preserved in health, the equivalent of 
purity. We must feel that it is a sacred shrine wherein 
the immortal spirit resides during its earth-life, and by 
which it is brought in contact with and is able to control 
the material world, and should disdain to do any act 
which shall deform or defeat its usefulness. 

The ascetics taught that the body was inherently sinful, 
and the best efforts of the spirit were to free itself entirely 
from its trammels. They had a ray of truth. Not the body, 
but its diseased condition, as a reflex of an unhappy spirit 
condition; the want ot proper control, inclines to wrong, 
rather than right. 

CULTURE OP THE INTELLECT. 

The possession of mind by man imposes the obligation 
of its culture. He must not only think, but think aright. 
Observation of phenomena is the food of the intellect, 
which digested appears in ideas. 

Of the methods of culture a wide diversity of opinion 
prevails. This, however, may be held as true, the Intel- 
lect is benefited in proportion as it assimilates its food. 
Collegiate cramming is the antipode of education. It is 
the learning of the parrot, and not of the man. 

What the Intellect is capable of achieving is shown by 
the attainments of those who have led in the discoveries 
of science and art. Newton shows what all may become 
in mathematics; Herschellin astronomy; Humboldt in the 
sciences, and assured that what is possible for them is pos- 
sible for every human being, we open an interminable 
field for culture; for the individual sciences it maybe bet- 
ter that each have specialists, but for the specialists it is a 
sacrifice of completeness, and dwarfing of their minds ex- 
cept in certain directions. 

Ignorance is a sin, if not the greatest, for it is the prolific 
source of crime, bigotry, superstition and vice. 

THE CULTURE OP MORALITY. 

The morals are the highest faculties of the mind. With- 
out them, Intellect becomes the ally of the Appetites and 
Propensities. The sense of right, justice, benevolence, un- 
selfish love which is benevolence, all are included in this 



132 THE ETHICS OF SPIRITUALISM: 

group. Its culture is of highest importance as by it man 
approaches the perfection of his ideal. 

The culture should be gained by actual exercise and not 
by theorizing. You may commit to memory all the moral 
sayings of the world, and read all its moral philosophies, 
and one deed will have more influence than all. 

It is usual for age to give mellowness to character, for 
the Propensities are less active, and the morals gain as- 
cendency. The same desirable state may be gained by cul- 
ture. Let it be known that morality is not obtained by 
means of a confession of faith, or observance of religious 
forms. It is the growth of a life-time. For it is not what 
a man does, except as it indicates the condition of his 
mind, so much as what he really is, and the motives which 
actuate him. 

The murderer on the gallows murmurs a prayer, calls 
on Jesus, and is forgiven. He dies with the certainty of 
salvation it is said, all his crimes washed away. This is 
a most immoral doctrine and leads to ruin instead of sal- 
vation. The young convert who receives mercy from the 
throne of grace is told and believes he is religious, or in 
other words, is as moral as it is possible to become. He 
cultivates a vain self-conceit instead of moral character, 
which cannot be gained by a resolve in an hour, a day or 
year, but by slow accretions, building with each new op- 
portunity, and trial. 

There can be no healthy, moral culture in seclusion. 
True character is the balance of faculties in the presence 
of the active world. There is no virtue in the gormand 
not eating when surfeited, of the drunkard not drinking 
when unconscious. Strength is gained and tested by 
temptation. 

The parents who keep their child away from contact 
with the world for fear of its contamination, forget that 
sooner or later this contact must come, and that the only 
way it can be prepared is by the contact itself. Then its 
tendencies can be watched and balanced, and morality 
grow strong by use. 

The plant droops and withers in darkness, and the only 
way it can be prepared for the light is by the light itself. 

The present every-day business and political code of 
morals, is a keen satire on the moral system taught under 
the name of religion. It shows how false is the basis of 



A SYSTEM OF MORAL PHILOSOPHY. 133 

that system. It has authoritatively told mankind that they 
were weak, and depraved until they have come to thinfc 
weakness and depravity their normal state. They are not 
ennobled by the thought that they are divine, but degraded 
as worms of the dust. 

The child should be taught as the first grand moral les- 
son, that it is a divine and holy being, too good and pure 
to do wrong. That as physical health is the perfect action 
and balance of all bodily powers, so spiritual health or 
happiness, depends on the action and balance of all men- 
tal faculties. It should be taught that expediency should 
never influence it in the choice between the good and the 
bad. It is expected always that moral power will rule. 
The struggle may be severe, but in the end it must triumph. 
For the man and woman there is the same code. The 
thought or word which causes one to blush should crim- 
son the cheek of the other. Virtue, chastity, fidelity have 
no limitation of sex. 

Such should be the first lesson instilled into the mind of 
the child. He should be taught to fear ignorance as the 
source of all error, and to seek knowledge as his only 
savior. 

If the men of thought are instanced as examples of the 
grand capabilities of the intellect, and the school-boy in- 
cited by achievements of the Humboldts, Herschels, La- 
Places and Darwins, still more should his moral charac- 
ter receive this incitive. Now it is deadened with the 
opiate of business necessities which are ruled by selfish- 
ness. The Astors, Vanderbilts, and Drews, are embodi- 
ments of commercial morality. How low and ignoble 
their selfish, grasping, unscrupulous aims ! None of these, 
but the sages of ancient and the spiritual thinkers of modern 
times, show to what sublime heights it is possible for man 
to reach. The Christian well may worship his ideal Christ, 
not that Jesus may forgive sin, but because what is possi- 
ble for him is possible for every human being. He per- 
ceived the true object of life, and made his ideal practical. 
Every child has the germs of these high qualities, which, 
however, dwarfed by the conditions of earth-life, will ma- 
ture in ripe fruitage in some future time. As this is the 
ultimate destiny, moral education should take precedence 
of all other instruction. In fact, education should be di- 
rected toward the moral instead of the purely intellectual. 



134 THE ETHICS OF SPIRITUALISM: 

It is not enough to know. Facts have no life unless their 
relation to spiritual advancement is understood. And here 
the knowledge of future life enters and unites all knowl- 
edge into one complete whole. Man becomes the greatest 
fact in the world, and his moral nature the gratest fact in 
man. 



CHAPTER XV. 



MARRIAGE. 

The difference in the condition of man and woman, has 
been an element of confusion in reasoning on the relations 
they should sustain to each other. She being the weaker, 
has during the vast ages of man's savage life been subject 
to his strength. Instead of the wife being the equal of her 
husband she has been his abused slave and beast of burden. 
It is interesting to trace the marriage relation, as it arises 
from the brutal instinct, to the spiritual plane, and note the 
slow conformation ot our intense, selfish appetite, to the 
ally of the purest sentiments, and feelings of humanity. 

The union of man and woman in the relation of husband 
and wife, a connection around which the holiest affections 
and purest emotions of the heart gather, to us is so natural 
that we infer all the races of men regard it in like manner. 
On the contrary, however, the lower races have no mar- 
riage in our sense of that term, nor are they susceptible ot 
true and abiding love. Marriage is little more than the 
meeting of the sexes, and is unaccompanied with affection. 
The words expressive of tender emotions, as " to love," 
" dear," " beloved," are found in few languages spoken by 
savages. The lowest races areas destitute of affections as 
the brutes, and cohabit in the same manner. " The Hot- 
tentots," says Kolben, " are so cold and indifferent to one 
another that you would think there was no such thing as 
love between them." Lander, in his " Niger Expedition," 
says of the Central African, " Marriage is celebrated by the 
natives as unconcernedly as possible : a man thinks as lit- 
tle of taking a wife as cutting an ear of corn — affection is 
entirely out of the question." 



A SYSTEM OF MORAL PHILOSOPHY. 135 

The lowest form of marriage, as presented by the most 
inferior races, cannot be termed such, more than the con- 
nections of animals. It has been styled very inappropri- 
ately communal marriage, but this term applies as well to 
the sexual relations of animals. It is consummated with- 
out love or affection, and is simply the result of brutal in- 
stinct. 

From this instinct we arise to a consideration of the ab- 
stract significance of its development in marriage, as ex- 
pressed in civilization. The conjugal instinct in the sav- 
age, like all his appetites, is unrestrained by higher mo- 
tives. We perceive as we arise to more advanced stages 
the blending of those motives, but nowhere their full ap- 
preciation. Marriage even with the most civilized people 
is not wholly redeemed from the original stain. Viewed 
as it was by the ascetic religionists of the past, it is not 
strange that it should be forbidden their holy men, or re- 
garded as evil. Marriage, which should be made in 
heaven, was in their conception made in hell, and to 
speak in correspondence, truthfully in the hell of the Pas- 
sions. 

Now that attention has been drawn to this subject more 
scrutinizingly than ever before, and the very foundations 
of monogamic marriage itself questioned ; now that in 
some quarters, the savage form of communal marriage is 
sought to be revived, and there is a loosening of confidence 
in the permanence of the marriage relation, by the ease 
with which legal divorce is procured, a thorough investi- 
gation of the subject is demanded. 

Never before has social science received such close and 
careful attention and impartial scrutii.y as at present; and 
the marriage relation as the basic institution of our social 
life, has of course absorbed a due share of investigation. 
It must, however, be confessed that sociology is far from 
resting on a fixed basis, and as yet holds similar relations 
to science that alchemy or astrology did several hundred 
years ago. 

We are entering a new era. Old ideas and cherished 
beliefs are broken up, and we eagerly ask where is the 
new truths which are to enshrine themselves in the place 
of our broken idols ? 

The social relations are of such subtle character, so in- 
tricate and difficult to understand, that the student is con- 



136 THE ETHICS OF SPIRITUALISM: 

founded on the threshold of the subject. Right and wrong 
become confused and the new is sought because new; it is 
said that the old is false because old. 

In a measure this social agitation is the result of the 
emancipation of the state from the church. Marriage has 
been regarded as a sacrament. The state declares it a le- 
gal institution, and by giving its officers power to legal- 
ize marriage, has destroyed its sacramental character. In 
this change is danger, for the mind pressed in one direc- 
tion, is prone to swing too far in the other when the pres- 
sure is removed. Marriage considered as a sacrament sol- 
emnized by God's vicegerents on earth, and founded on 
divine ordinance, was considered indissoluble except for 
great crimes. There is enchantment in this view of mar- 
riage. If the right individuals are united in its adaman- 
tine chains, so far from galling they give perfect security 
and re3t. Love receives the sanction of divine authority, 
and is declared eternal. 

But the right individuals do not always unite. Human 
nature being fallible, errs in its judgment. The wrong in- 
flicted by irrevocable marriage became apparent, and the 
institution came under the control of the state. The poesy, 
the charm of imagination, the play of fervent fancy in this 
prosiac age, gather, as they should, around the actual love; 
but the ceremony has no divine power or awful mystery 
of authority. It rests on man-made laws. Now the social 
philosopher swings with a bound from the sacramental 
to the legal. He declares marriage to be a mere legal 
contract, and like all other legal contracts dissolvable with 
the consent of the parties. This theory has wide publici- 
ty. Is it true ? We say emphatically, No. So far as mari- 
tal laws protect the rights of the contracting parties and 
their offspring, it becomes like other legal contracts. Be- 
yond these limits, it is subject to higher laws. 

A legal contract, when fulfilled, if justly made, leaves 
the contracting parties as they were when the contract 
was made. If the marriage relation is assumed, can the 
contracting parties make restitution, and is it not impos- 
sible to fill its obligations except with an entire and de- 
voted life? 

Furthermore, the institution with all its enactments, 
looks beyond, to children as a third party, who, although 
outside of, absolutely depend on its provisions. It is ab- 



A SYSTEM OF MORAL PHILOSOPHY. 137 

surd to term such an agreement a legal contract, like any 
other which may be annulled at any time by the desire of 
one or both the parties; for its permanence is of as vital 
importance to the children as to them, and no power can 
make good the loss of a united paternal home, and the love 
and care of parents. These are rights which the child de- 
mands, which transforms, marriage from a legal contract. 
When this demaud is made the contract becomes irrevo- 
cable so far as they are concerned. 

The rights which grow out of marriage may be defined 
by law; but no human enactments can reach the subtle re- 
lations of souls. Estates, real and personal, may be meas- 
ured and apportioned by law; the heart lies beyond its 
province. Sacred and holy are its relations, and so far as 
it enters, marriage becomes a divine sacrament; the 
golden chalice in which the mutual lives of parents and 
offspring are pressed by generous hands to willing lips. 

The theory of no individual, however, plausible, or 
gratifying, will win. The great question is what will 
bring the most good and happiness to the individual and 
humanity, and whatever that may be will certainly gain 
ascendency. We feel assured by history that wife-slavery 
has been tried and failed. Woman has the same right to 
freedom as man, and a wrong inflicted on her is a wrong 
on the race. Half the life of humanity is destroyed by her 
slavery. Communal marriage has been tried and proved 
a failure. In its gross form, or combined with wife-slavery 
it gave no warm social life, and threw the burden of the 
family on the wife to whom it did not belong. 

Polygamy is essentially brutal and degrading. The fam- 
ily with its united responsibilities, its social life, its pur- 
est of joys, can never exist with a plurality of wives and 
mothers. It has been fully tested, and civilization where 
it exists is a failure. 

We have, then, to consider monogamic marriage, and 
ask, first, is it based on the constitution of man ? 

The fact that the number of male and female births is 
nearly the same, being practically identical, and when 
uninterfered with remains identical, is a strong evidence 
in favor of monogamic marriage. If one man have sever- 
al wives, then several men must remain single. If mar- 
riage has advantages, and through and by it a higher good 
and happiness be attained, then on the latter an irrepara- 



138 THE ETHICS OF SPIRITUALISM : 

ble wrong is inflicted. Polygamy does not cancel this 
wrong, by a greater amount of happiness or good bestowed 
on the plurality of wives, for they are held in abject slav- 
ery, and the harem is not a favorable school for children. 

Marriage looks forward to the family. Children have a 
right to parental love and affection, and parents by the 
marital act assume the responsibilities of the care and 
proper education of their children. 

Society is interested in marriage so far as compelling 
the individual to bear such responsibilities, otherwise if 
the individual did not, then the burden justly his, becomes 
a common tax on all, which would be unjust, except 
through benevolence. The duties of parents of caring for 
their children, lasts until the latter have attained their ma- 
jority, and this period extends over the mature portion of 
parental life. It is in the home established by such mar- 
riage, that the most complete expression of the best quali- 
ties of human nature is attained. It is through the family 
that love goes forth to the world. Then the child receives 
the attention the warmth of affection bestows, which in 
no other way can be poured out in such full measure. 
Then the mother can receive the protection, and care 
which is her right : For to the father belongs the main- 
tainance of his child. This duty is his, because of his 
greater strength and ability. 

This state demands honor, truthfulness and fidelity. 
While love is free to choose, it is not free to cast aside du- 
ties once assumed. When it has once decided, the fact 
that its decision is final, is a potent cause of permanency. 
If it be allowed to decide with every momentary whim, 
there could be no marriage, which by its nature contem- 
plates, and presupposes permanence. The pledges of 
lovers are exchanged under the assurance of eternal dura- 
tion, for love is prophetic, and recognizes with clear pre- 
science its demands. 

Conjugal love is exclusive, because it presciently feels, 
what science is slowly but surely revealing, the great and 
imperishable influence the parents have over each other 
through the parental act. The very being of the mother 
is molded by the force which fashions the germ after its 
father. She assimilates and becomes like him. It is a 
union, if possible, more close than were the same blood to 
pass through their united veins, and beyond this, in the 



A SYSTEM OF MORAL PHILOSOPHY. 139 

domain of subtile magnetism, yet almost unknown, are 
more delicate blend ings. The attraction and repulsion 
which finer natures experience, and which are remorse- 
lessly sacrificed, to convenience, or interest, are the surest 
guides in the formation of proper unions, and the health, 
beauty, and development of offspring are directly related 
to their satisfaction and balance ; for they express the pri- 
mal condition of the spirit, which builds up the physical 
body. The suffering which flows from ruthlessly igno- 
ring conjugal love, both mental and physical, is beyond 
the expression of language. The magnetic, or nervous 
forces, if unbalanced and unsatisfied, induce mental suf- 
fering, which can only be borne by high resolves, and the 
passivity of endurance. The germinal force carries with 
its mental, the physical conditions of the father, and the 
body and spirit of the mother is warped by its influence. 
The transmission of disease, long latent in the father, is 
the most obvious illustration of this statement. The poi- 
son may not appear in the same form as in the father, but 
attacking the weakest organs of the mother result in con- 
sumption, nervous debility, scrofula even in the terrible 
form of cancer. Or it may fail to attack the mother from 
constitutional peculiarities, and fall on the offspring. 
They will die young, or struggle with chronic disease, in- 
curable, because resulting from radical organic changes. 
By entering the physiological and psychological fields a 
volume might be written on this subject, in evidence of 
the principles here stated. These principles lie at the 
foundation of human progress, and cannot be ignored. 
Their evidence is in the experience of every one who has 
given the least thought to this momentous subject, and 
still more wonderful, the husband and father, though these 
nervous forces are subject to changes second only to those 
in the wife and mother. This vast province which lies be- 
tween physiology and psychology has yet to be explored. 

Thus the necessity of removing marriage from the plane 
of Appetites, of the Desires, to that of the purest spiritual 
necessities, and its consummation by the guidance of 
knowledge instead of blind, infatuated ignorance, is pre- 
sented in its strongest light. 

Free Love, has by its plausibility led many a well inten- 
tioned soul to perdition. Love is not free, nor can it be. 
It has freedom in its own sphere, but not to interfere with 



140 THE ETHICS OF SPIRITUALISM: 

other faculties. If by love is meant simply the Appetite, 
then in animals it is free. They have no sense of Rights, 
they have no duties, and are led only by the reproductive 
instinct. In man this Appetite is combined with the most 
spiritual and noble qualities He has Rights and Duties, 
unknown to brutes, and his love is bounded by them. 
Their voice is superior to the promptings of love, even in 
its most spiritualized form. The necessities of their ex- 
istence forbids the stability of the conjugal instinct in ani- 
mals, and mutation is their law. The same instinct in 
man of itself, prompts to the same evanescent character. 
Its uncontrolled activity, or misdirected energy has caused 
more pain and ruin than all other causes of human 
wretchedness combined. The novels of the day fan its 
flames, and teach impressible youth, that love is a myste- 
rious power which draws souls together and union must 
be consummated at all cost, regardless of reason ; that love 
must be blind, if true, work evil and evil only. A more 
destructive belief never existed, than this which converts 
man into an automaton guided by one of his lowest Ap- 
petites. 

Free? Certainly, to love, under guidance of Wisdom. 

The doctrine of affinity is responsible for a large share 
of those erroneous ideas. It is a revival of the old myth 
that husband and wife were two halves ; when the right ones 
came together a perfect unit was formed, but when the 
wrong, inharmony and antagonism was the result. As 
with fallible imperfect beings such units are rare, the pre- 
sumption is that the wrong halves have been brought to- 
gether. If every one has a corresponding mate created es- 
pecially, it is self-evident that all have a right to seek un- 
til they find that mate. The search may be hopeless, they 
nevertheless have the right. The modern phase of this 
myth has as little foundation as the ancient. Its belief 
leads to discontent, and thus intensifies any inharmony 
which may exist. 

Love is free to choose, but in man love means more than 
instinct : it means the affections and all that vast sphere of 
unselfish qualities wh^'ch have been aptly termed the benev- 
olent. Having made choice, it incurs the most momentous 
duties, possible for a human being to assume, and rights 
spring up which cannot be set aside. These can be prop- 
erly met, only by a life of mutual devotion between the 



A SYSTEM OF MORAL PHILOSOPHY. 141 

husband and the wife. The fruit of love is an immortal 
spirit, coming unbidden into this world, and claiming as 
a right inalienable, the affection and care of its father and 
mother. No sophistry can answer this first grand law of 
humanity. 

Not only does the child call for care and attention, it 
itensifies the best qualities of its parents' hearts. This is 
not all. Man is the most helpless in infancy and remains 
so for a longer period, than almost any other being, and 
hence the rearing of two or three children spans the 
length of most lives, from youth to age. During this pe- 
riod separation of parents is a deplorable event to their 
children who thus lose the care and affection which is 
justly theirs. 

In case of separation, the children being the joint right 
and responsibility of both parents, are either torn from 
each other, or because the affection of the mother is the 
strongest, they are given to her. She, however, is least 
able to support them and thus bears a double injustice, 

But it is replied, this objection does not apply where 
there are no children! When a man and woman unite 
their lives, and found a home, the chief consideration 
which actuates each, is that it will be permanent. They 
risk everything on this belief; all their plans are made in 
accordance with it. There is a trust and confidence which 
never would be gained, if there was a shadow of a doubt. 
There are rights common to both. Purity and chastity 
are required by physiology as well as morality. Unself- 
ish affection and devotion are also demanded, which shall 
always regard the happiness and pleasure of the other 
rather than its own. Less than this will yield unhappiness. 

There are duties which cannot be set aside. First of 
truthfulness to the vows as taken ; of mutual assistance, of 
yielding affection. No untoward event can cancel these 
rights and duties. 

" Can you help loving the lovable ?" is asked. We reply, 
Can you help committing an injustice? Can you help 
stealing ? Why do you claim that you can refrain from 
gratification of avarice ; of taking that which is not your 
own, and not from loving? For here love is simply 
appetite. If you mean the pure love which ignores self 
in a grand benevolence, we sav the more of it you have the 
better, for it only elevates you and those you love. Look 



142 THE ETHICS OF SPIPwITUALISM: 

at the practical results of the doctrine of Freedom in Love. 
After half a life-time spent together, during which all the 
interests of each is inextricably bound in those of the other, 
the husband finds a lovely person whom he must love be- 
cause lovely. Which shall triumph, the rights of the wife 
or the attractions of love; justice, honor, purity, or ani- 
mal instinct? Every one will draw back with aversion 
from the gulf on the brink of which this man stands. The 
hell of passion is in that abyss. If he yields, manhood, 
character, integrity, usefulness are gone, for the cable 
which holds him to right is broken ; the compass of duty 
is lost, and at one fell step he is plunged from humanity 
to brutality. 

No course so utterly paralyzes the spiritual nature as 
this: None arouse all the other propensities with equal 
stimulant. For this instinct saturates and influences all 
others. The treachery of the tiger, the cunning of the 
fox, the ferocity of the lion it augments tenfold, and 
even the timid deer will fight to the death. It allies 
itself with brutality, and stimulates the taste for intox- 
icants and narcotics. It is unmixed and unmitigated self- 
ishness. The smallest part of human life should be di- 
verted to the natural and essential obligation of this in- 
stinct. With as many offspring as can be cared for and 
educated its function is accomplished. That number 
must be determined by the united wisdom of loth 
parents. An undesired child will never* enter a family 
holding the relations we have outlined. They will come 
fast and abundantly into the house of " free-love," but to 
that fire-side where love is benevolence, they will come be- 
cause sought. 

It is objected, that marriage often results disastrously. 
The home becomes a pandemonium, and unmentionable 
suffering results. This is only too true, but it must be ad- 
mitted that such marriages are the exceptions, and they 
are such because they violate the principles before stated, 
to which a union fraught with such vital consequences 
should conform. Likeness, similarity of views and tastes, 
are considered unimportant, and attractions of the mo- 
ment, convenience, or interest, decide the most important 
matter which can be presented, on which life-long happi- 
ness or misery depends. 
Should these mistakes be remedied by divorce, we 



A SYSTEM OF MORAL PHILOSOPHY. 143 

think as the lesser of two evils, both appalling, they 
should be. That divorce, however, should be granted for 
such reasons, and in such a manner as not to weaken 
confidence in the marriage relation. What is wanted, is 
not divorce, which is a bad remedy for a bad disease; but 
education, in the broad and most liberal sense, and espe- 
cially a deep, moral culture, which shall present the pur- 
pose of life, its objects and destiny. This can be accom- 
plished only by Spiritualism in its ideal, as opposed to 
Materialism. 

The highest form of marriage as taught and exacted by 
the Christian churches, endures until death. Vastly higher 
and purer is the ideal of Spiritualism, which extends this 
union into the infinite future, where every stain of earthly 
attraction, shall perish and soul be drawn to soul by the 
holiest motives of benevolence. 

Beyond this no higher relation can exist. It lies at the 
foundation of all social life. And as in its lowest expres- 
sion, it is a creator of beings, in its higher, it is the golden 
bond which unites them into universal brotherhood. 

Speculatively, what will be the ultimate of this union 
which we have seen reaches its adamantine cords, through 
every fibre of the united beings ? Will it continue the gross 
connection it is commonly regarded ? 

There can be no doubt that love survives the shock ot 
death of the physical body, and in the sphere immediately 
beyond this contributes to the joys of existence. Yet the 
proposition has axiomatic force, that whatever has rela- 
tion only to this mortal life and not to immortality, will 
sooner or later disappear. 

Nature, in her interminable series of living beings, from 
the atomie to man, ever keeps one aim in view, the evolu- 
tion of a perfect human being. Sexual distinctions are her 
methods of propagation, arise from necessity and have this 
one object in view. With this distinction is correlated, or 
of necessity accompanies, others of dependent character. 

The mental qualities of the parents must correspond to 
the diverse demands made on each. The qualities of father 
and mother are stamped on the spirit. 

It is also axiomatic that whenever a function ceases to 
be required, all its dependent manifestations, however re- 
mote, sooner or later also cease. The distinction of sex is 
an accident in the immortal life of the spirit, essential for 



144 THE ETHICS OF SPIItlTU ALISM : 

the furtherance of the requirements of organic being, but 
when the spirit has cast aside the physical body, through 
and by which such distinctions are of value, it becomes 
necessary to suppose that the mental and spiritual accom- 
panying distinctions are cast aside. The organization pos- 
sessed while in the physical body, will for a time reflect 
itself on the spirit. It will think and feel as it did on the 
earth, but these effects will be outgrown. 

The fundamental faculties of man and woman are the 
same, the mental distinctions arising from greater activity 
in certain directions than in others ; an activity dependent 
on organic requirements. It consequently follows that as 
soon as such demands are no longer made, the mind will 
seek a state of equilibrium The mental qualities depend- 
ent on the accidents of earth-life wili be lost, as man and 
woman become like each other by mutual approach to a 
common type. Conjugal love, so exquisitely beautiful in 
its expression on earth, will become sublimated into a 
higher and purer form. The stain of earthly qualities will 
disappear, and the spirit be conscious of its own complete- 
ness, in feeling that it is self-contained. It has at last 
reached the ideal perfection of Love, which pours out its 
golden flood like the ever-pulsating sun, unasked, and with 
no selfish thought of recompense. 



CHAPTER XVI, 



CONCLUSION. 
Immobtamy!— That secrect lies in a tissueless realm whereof no nerve can 
report beforehand.— A Iger. 
If man is immortal, should he not know it?— Spirit. 

There are, nor can be, but two classes of thinkers : — Ma- 
terialists and Spiritualists. The former refer the phe- 
nomena of the world to matter alone, the latter look be- 
neath the surface for a universal cause. To one, creation 
is a meaningless change, to the other every change has 
a purpose and means evolution to a grand and determ- 
inate goal. There has never been a system of materialistic 
ethics, because such a system must be essentially selfish 
and be rather a system of political economy than of morals. 
Materialists may be very good and moral, but their char- 



A SYSTEM OF MORAL PHILOSOPHY. 145 

acter is not an outgrowth of their philosophy. The pre- 
vailing moral systems are allied to the prevailing religions, 
and are a part and parcel of religious education, and have 
not their foundation in the nature of man. 

Now, while religion is based on Spiritualism, and is its 
rude expression from age to age, it has misinterpreted the 
phenomena of man's spiritual nature, and been untrue to 
its infinite trust. Spiritualism differs from religion in 
as much as it substitutes the knowledge of the spiritual 
universe for simple faith. It is to spiritual things what 
the physical sciences are to physical. 

Its ethics are the principles which lie at the base of the 
constitution of man as an immortal being. 

They who regard the turning of a table, or the answer- 
ing of questions by the rappings, as all there is of Spirit- 
ualism, labor under a great mistake. The modern mani- 
festations of trance, writing, speaking, do not constitute 
its entirety ; but these are only accidental waves thrown 
up on the sea of Spirit-life, which break at our feet, while 
beyond, the horizon sinks away in the haze of the infinite 
past. 

This Spiritualism is not alone for to-day. It streams 
through all past ages, and is for all future time. 

It is the Science of Life, penetrating all things, sustain- 
ing all things. It runs like a golden strand through the 
revelations of the past. It forms the glorious pattern in 
the web of history. It is the vital essence of the literature 
and pcetry of all races of mankind. Take it away and there 
is naught left but the corpse, the dead and desolate ma- 
terial. 

In its modern aspect it presents new ideas correspond- 
ing to the times, the progress of thought, the demands of 
civilization. 

The same grand laws of spirit communion,— cut through 
all the ages, and are alike expressed among all races of 
men. Clouded and obscured by accidents of time and 
place, yet unchangeably the same. As in its modern 
phase the unlettered medium in the rude cabin in the 
pine forest of Michigan, moved by invisible influence to 
write on a rough pine board with a piece of charcoal- 
and the cultured lady surrounded by the luxuries of 
wealth, similarly actuated, to write on scented note, com- 
municate each in their own way, the same great truths, 



146 THE ETHICS OF SPIRITUALISM 

without contradiction, proving that above, beyond, there 
is a controlling influence superior to its earthly mediums; 
so in the revelations of Hindoostan, of Persia, of Arabia, 
of Judea, cardinal ideas, and sublime inspirations alike 
common to all, enforce their unity of origin. The ancient 
and the modern manifestations are one, and from the time 
the first spirit entered the great Beyond until the present, 
the inspiration of the departed has not ceased. It may 
have had its ebb, and its flood tides, as the conditions of 
man changed between the day and night of intelligence, 
but never has wholly disappeared. It has had its days of 
Pentecost, of which the present is one, when the angel 
world seems to approach nearer, or the clouds of materi- 
ality to be riven and blown aside, and angel whispers 
more clearly heard through the trembling bars of physical 
man. 

Cast on an age of infidelity and doubt, we have acqui- 
esced in the sneers of our scientific teachers, and rejected 
the supernatural, the spiritual, without a moment's thought, 
with scoff and sneer as beneath the attention of a thinking 
man. A narrative in any way transcending the region of 
the senses, brings a smile of pity on the faces of our learned 
leaders at the credulity and want of culture in the relator. 
It is the fashion to doubt and sneer, and the easiest method 
of concealing ignorance. The anathema of the priest is 
met by the scorn of the scientist, and both overlook the 
happy mean where the stream of truth flows on in its crys- 
tal course. 

SPIRITUALISM IS THE SCIENCE OP LIFE. 

If you take all its modern phenomena, the gentle rap- 
pings, expressive of the approach of angel guests, the 
movement of physical objects, trance and inspiration in 
their varying forms, you have but an insignificant part. 
If to this you add the sacred volumes, the Zend Avesta of 
the Persian, the Holy Vedas of the Hindoos, the Koran of 
the Mohammedan, our own Bible, both old and new, you 
have brought together the collected inspiration of the 
childhood of the world, and superimposed it on its most 
perfect expression, but you have not all of Spiritualism. 

If you take the sciences, those relating to our own earth, 
and the more exalted which treat of the infinite nomen- 
clature of the stars, you have added the concrete wisdom, 
resultant of the combined thought of the world, but you 



A SYSTEM OF MORAL PHILOSOPHY. 147 

have not Spiritualism, you have still achieved only the 
known, while the unknown realm lies in shadow, stretch- 
ing an infinite sea, whose shore you have reached, and 
gathered a handful of pebbles. 

When that sea *i explored, when the mysteries of the un- 
known are explained, when the laws of the realm of spirit 
are as well known as the laws of matter, in that remote 
time the lofty spirits of the temple of spiritual science, will 
proudly pierce the clouds of doubt, and we shall under- 
stand that spirit is the real, of which matter is but the fleet- 
ing shadow. 

LAW NOT MIRACLE 

rules the spiritual as well as the physical world. When 
we are told that it is impossible for a physical object to 
float in the air without being operated on by some phys- 
ical agency, that it is contrary to the laws of gravitation, 
the story of the stone rolled from the mouth of the sepul- 
cher by angel hands, comes freshly to mind. When we 
relate how Home was wafted from his chair out through 
the open window of the second story, and returned through 
another window of the same room, we hear a laugh of de- 
rision, but then shall we believe the story of Ezekiel being 
taken up and carried a great way and set down amidst the 
assembly of the seventy ancient ones ? The first phenome- 
non rests on the evidence of men like Prof. Varley, electri- 
cian of the Atlantic telegraph, Prof. Dr. Morgan, and Lord 
de Vere; the other on the evidence of whom? 

Trance Media, when their spiritual perceptions are 
opened, see the radiant forms of the immortals, and de- 
scribe them. Are they deceived or deceiving? When 
Peter, John, and James went up into the Mount with Jesus, 
M and as he prayed, the fashion of his countenance was 
altered, and his raiment was white and glistening. And 
behold ! there talked with Him two men, which were Moses 
and Elias, who appeared in glory, and spoke of his decease 
which he should accomplish at Jerusalem." Were Peter, 
John, and James deceived or deceivers? 

There are media who are specially endowed with power 
over disease. They can, by " laying on of hands," remove 
pain, restore the lost equilibrium of the vital forces, give 
sight to the blind, and heal the lame. 

Christ, while on earth, exercised the same power, and 
bestowed it on his disciples, making it a test of their faith 



148 THE ETHICS OF SPIRITUALISM: 

ia him, saying that these works should follow those who 
believed on him. Where is written any revocation of this 
gift ? Are the healing media of to-day frauds and impos- 
tors? Are not the phenomena attending them parallel 
with those recorded as miracles in the L\ble? 

They who discard the modern manifestations, fall into 
an unfortunate dilemma. 

There is one law of spirit communion, and if it were 
possible for Moses and Elias to appear to mortal vision 
two thousand years ago, it is possible for your friends and 
mine, who have passed beyond the shadow of the grave, to 
appear to us under similar mediumistic conditions. If it 
was possible for angel-hands to roll aside the huge stone 
from the mouth of the sepulcher, it is possible for the 
hands of our angels to move a table or rap responsive to 
our thoughts. If Ezekiel could be levitated by the grasp 
of an overshadowing angel, media of the present can in 
the same manner be transported. 

Do you say the present phenomena are results of fraud, 
electricity, hallucination, or the devil ? Have a care, for 
you wield a two-edged sword which cuts both ways ; and 
after you have satisfactorily proved modern Spiritualism 
to be the result of fraud, electricity, or the devil, you will 
learn that your explanation will apply with equal force to 
the sacred record of the past ; its holy prophets become 
impostors, its sages mouthpieces of Satan, and the inspira- 
tion which has furnished the bread of life to countless 
millions, is fraud, the trick of electricity, the instigation of 
the devil ! 

There is only one escape. 

WHAT IS POSSIBLE IN ONE AGE IS POSSIBLE TO ALL. 

The angel world is ever near us. Its waves break on the 
coast line of materiality. If we see not our beloved, it we 
hear not their voices of love, if we feel not their sacred 
presence, ours not theirs the fault. Clouds darken the day, 
and the light is obscured by the murk of the storm, but 
the sun is ever shining. Out of the clouds, above the thin 
veil of the storm its glorious rays shine with undiminished 
lustre. So our spirit friends stand outside the shadow 
which our own earthliness gathers around us. Their love 
is ever perfect, their presence ever holy, their affections 
unchanging. If we allow this shadow to thicken into im- 
penetrable night, and conceal their presence, we can rest 



A SYSTEM OF MORAL PHILOSOPHY. 149 

assured that their love burns on the altars of their hearts 
with undying intensity. 

We can not test these spiritual entitles by retort, cruci- 
ble, or balance, says the scientist. Tney never communi- 
cate with us! No, they do not, and is it a matter of pride 
that you plume yourselves? Though mediumship meas- 
urably rests on physical conditions, purity of its commu- 
nications depends on spiritual purity of life. That you do 
not see nor feel the presence of the angels, does not prove 
that they do not exist, more than the clouds blot out the 
sun, but is only evidence that. your own being is surrounded 
by the murk of clouds, outside of which the radiant spirits 
await unseen. 

The seers and prophets of ©Id, when they sought to place 
themselves in rapport with the divine and spiritual pow- 
ers, retired to the solitude of nature; the cave, the desert, 
the wilderness, and by contemplation and fasting, cleared 
the atmosphere of their own spirits, becoming purified 
before they petitioned the approach of spirit intelligences. 

Christ went into the wilderness and fasted forty days 
before the full flood-tide of his mission poured out upon 
him. 

Even Spiritualists themselves do not fully understand 
this relation between spirits and mortals. They seek com- 
munication while they are enveloped in the clouds of pas- 
sion, and disturbed by the fitful fever of earthly cares, or 
stained by vicious habits. Is it strange the radiance of the 
spirit's thought is changed to a lurid glare, or that it fails 
even distortedly to break through the fog ? Is it strange 
that communicatioDs are false and puerile? Rather is it 
not strange that any are received, when so little care and 
attention are bestowed in preparing for their reception ? 

WITH UNSANDLED FEET 

the Moslem enters the portals of the Mosque. With head 
reverently bowed he approaches the holy shrine. He has 
purified himself by fasting and ablutions, and feels that he 
is in a degree worthy of bowing at the altar. But now 
with feet shod with iron, dust-covered, with begrimmed 
garments, and bodies saturated with effeteness, the pro 
duct of unwholesome food, of poisonous drinks, of narcot- 
izing habits, you would enter the courts of spiritual puri- 
ty, and because you blot out the light, you say it does not 
exist, or because you receive distorted images, or only a 



150 THE ETHICS OF SPIRITUALISM 

red glare penetrates the fog you say it is unreliable and 
eyil. You not only blot out, you repel the angelic influ- 
ence, and if there be Diakka or spirits of evil, you court 
their presence. 
First of all 

THE TEMPLE SHOULD BE PURIFIED. 

We should feel that this body should be made a pure 
and holy place for the presence of the immortal spirit. It 
is so closely related to that spirit that it reflects every scar 
and stain. You cannot make it a pest-house, the abode of 
uncleanliness with impunity. - 

THE FIRST CONDITION OF SPIRITUAL PURITY, 

is health, and health is the resultant of the harmony of 
spirit and body, which rests on perfect obedience to the 
laws of life. 

SPIRITUALISM DISCARDS NOT THE PAST. 

It throws away not a single stone or brick from any edi- 
fice, however moss-grown and ruinous, which has furnished 
shelter to humanity. No truth uttered is rejected. The in- 
spiration received by fasting hermit beneath the banyan 
shade by the holy Ganges; by Persian Magi around their 
altar fires; by Moslem prophet in desert solitude; by self- 
denying apostles, and suffering martyrs; by plodding stu- 
dents into nature's arcaha, are alike written in its sacred 
Bible — sacred because true. 

IT IS LEADERLESS. 

Perhaps no form of belief ever made more rapid pro- 
gress than Spiritualism has done in the last quarter of a 
century. We may reject as erroneous the statement put 
forth by Judge Edmonds, that there are eleven millions of 
Spiritualists in the United States, but we cannot close our 
eyes to the fact that its adherents are numbered by mill- 
iocs, that they who openly profess their belief are few in 
number to those who secretly entertain it. It has pushed 
its way into the churches, and has changed the tone of 
thought not only of laymen but of the pulpit and the press. 
It has in Europe achieved even greater success than in this 
country, and in Hindostan and the Australian Seas has 
made multitudes of converts. Yet this conquest has been 
accomplished without a leader to direct its career, and in 
the face of the united opposition of the press and of public 
opinion. Silently, without effort it has won its way. Dur- 
ing these years many have attempted to seize the helm and 



A SYSTEM OF MORAL PHILOSOPHY. 151 

guide the cause as they thought best, but without excep- 
tion they have sank in disgrace and oblivion. It is not in 
mortal hands. All failures have been converted into suc- 
cesses, and the cause, borne onward by the tide of constant 
inspiration, has had an accelerated movement. 

IT MAKES MAN THE DIVINE CENTER. 

Man is the perfected flower of the Tree of Life, and his 
spirit, its immortal fruitage. He concentrates in his organ- 
ism all the elements, and all lower forms of life. In his 
spirit is aggregated the forces of the universe. He under- 
stands all because a part of all. The laws of revolving 
worlds are written in the congeries of his brain. Hence 
he is the divine center around which the universe of being 
revolves, and is capable of infinite possibilities. 

SPIRITUALISM IS NOT A SYSTEM OP THEOLOGY. 

It is not a religion in the usual acceptance of that word. 
It is the Science of Life, and its understanding requires 
the study of nature in all departments of thought. No 
organization fashioned after the old methods can possess 
permanence. The new wine can not be put into old bot- 
tles. They who are Spiritualists are such because they 
cannot coalesce with organizations. They are isolated 
because of their intense individuality. No form or state- 
ment of belief will hold them together. 

NOT SACRIFICES OR PRAYERS REQUIRED, BUT A HOLY LIFE. 

When we become fully impressed with the fearful posi- 
tion, with its vast responsibilities, we occupy ; that we are 
not creatures of time but eternity ; that every thought and 
act has relation to our eternal welfare, we shall be im- 
pressed with the necessity of fashioning the conduct of 
our lives in accordance with the highest principles of 
right. Outside of ourselves there is no salvation, and our 
redemption can only be gained by growth. 

WE ARE NOT LIVING FOR OURSELVES ALONE. 

"We are atoms in the great Republic of the universe and 
our condition rests on that of all others. We are "individu- 
al sovereigns," but the sphere of our sovereignty is narrow- 
ly circumscribed. It is bounded by the rights of others 
which we cannot transcend. 

Spiritualism substitutes knowledge for faith. We do 
not believe, we know that our loved and lost live on the 
other side of the grave. We hear the whisper of their an- 
gel voices; we are rejoiced at the messages they bring of 



152 THE ETHICS OF SPIRITUALISM: 

never dying love of friendship. Overshadowed by their 
presence, we feel the impulses of a new and higher life, 
which guides our feet in the pathway of purity and mag- 
nanimity of life. 

In the struggle of life we may stumble or fall. Never a 
tree, however, rugged and grand but by storm and tempest 
has lost a limb or been lightning scarred. Sustained by 
our trust, we shall arise humbled, but not over-borne by 
the lesson, and press onward to higher and higher ground. 
And when we cast aside this mortal garment, and the ele- 
ments claim it as their own ; when the night of death set- 
tles darkly over our mortal eyes, our freed spirit, no longer 
impeded by the accidents of time and place, will be greeted 
on the evergreen shores of immortal life by the friends we 
have known; with them will the spirit realize its possibil- 
ities, and there will be no more parting forever and for- 
ever. 



THE END. 



I ]N J-/ SLi J±» 



Absolute truth, 65. 

Accountability, S3, 72. 

Activity and rest, 48. 

Advance, path of, 82. 

Alexander, 55. 

American solution of the social problem, 114. 

Animals, duty to, 39; senses of, 67; benevolence in, 60. 

Atonement, 101. 

Benevolence, 60; in animals, 60. 

Capital Punishment, 123. 

Centralization, 119. 

Charity, 79. 

Charter of rights, 89. 

Change of heart, 73. 

Civilization, tendency of, 116; dawn of, 89. 

Cohesion, 40. 

Combativness, 53. 

Conclusion, 144. 

Conscience, 68; has man a? 68; what is? 69; of savages, 70; 
reason and, 67; loss of, 73; tribunal of, 76; how does it 
decide, 74; culture of, 74; creation and evolution, 36; 
criminal class, 124; duty of society to, 122. 

Culture of the will, 88; of conscience, 74; of the intellect, 131; 
of morality, 131. 

Dawn of civilization, 112. 

Depravity, 88. 

Diet, morality dependent on, 48. 

Discarding old beliefs, why dangerous, vii. 

Destructiveness, 53. 

Duty, 78; to God, 98; as a source of strength, 109; of self-cul- 
ture, 127; to animals and lower forms of life, 39; of prayer, 
102; of children, 105; of parents, 100; superior to love of 
life, 52. 

Duties of society, 110; to criminals, 122; of the individual, 98; 
natural, 105; of society, 107, 110. 

Education, 117. 

Epicureans,79. 

Eternity, 36. 

Evolutions, 36. 

Fable of the wheel, 115. 

Faculties, gradation of in the animal world, 42. 

Faith, 66; resting on knowlege, 104. 

Fairchild, 77. 

Family, origin of 21; continuity of, 21; government rests on 
thee, 113. 

Force, origin of, 21; continuity of, 21. 

Free will, 12. 

Freedom, salvation in, 95; of the press, 95. 

Geographical conditions of human progress, 45. 

Good, what is it ? 77. 

God, 27; duty to, 98; obligations to, 98; obedience to, 99. 

Government, 121; should give assurance, 123; rights of, 121. 

Gravitation, 40. 

Habits, 47; happiness, 77, 80, 90; Hickock, 77; high and low, 
rule by which they can be distinguished, 43. 

Hunger, 44. 



15A INDEX. 

Ideal perfection, 34. 

Immortality, governed by law, 20; basis of religion, 20; not be- 
stowed but inherent, v. 

Interest, 91; Individual, the, 11; not degraded from a higher 
estate, 11. 

Intellect, the, comprehends the fact of i the material world, 66. 

Iniuitionists, 69. 

Intolerance grows out of ignorance of, 98. 

Justice, 62; in the material universe, 62; in man, 63; of re- 
ligion, 63. 

Labor, 90; has a right to its own products, 90; to land, 90; to 
opportunity, 90. 

Law, not miracle, 147. 

Leonidas, 109. 

Liberty, 94. 

Life a discipline, 80; right to one's own, 52; love of, 51; in con- 
nection with duty, 52; beginning of, 2S; progress of, 
28, 29. 

Love, 57; of power, 55; of property, 53; of self, 55; of life, 81; 
of truth, 64; combined with the appetites, 58. 

Man, his fall, viii; position of, 14; a dual, 15; right to think for 
himself, 94; origin of, 29; pre-historic, 110; imperfect 
senses in savages, 67; has he a conscience? 68; his stimu- 
lants to progress, 45; by nature moral, 59, 60; susceptibili- 
ty to infinite progress, 12; a product of evolution, 13; 
similarityof, to animals, 16; incomplete, 18; prophecy of his 
present incompleteness, 18. 

Marriage, 134. 

Materialists, errors of, 18. 

Morals begin with diet, 48. 

Metaphysical systems of morals erroneous, 18. 

Moral government, loss of, 39. 

Martyrdom, 52. 

Mill, illustration of the, 91. 

Natural, shall we be ? 42. 

Nervous system the bridge between matter and spirit, 17. 

Not sacrifice or prayer required, but a holy life, 151. 

Obedience to God, 98, 99. 

Obligations of the individual, 98 

Old age, 55; beauty and deformity of, 58. 

Paley, 77. 

Perfection, ideal of, 74, 34. 

Plato, 24. 

Pirate, illustration of, 73. 

Power of love, 55, 73. 

Prayer, duty of, 102. 

Propensities, the selfish, 51. 

Press, freedom of, 95. 

Present danger to the, 121. 

Pre-historic man, 110. 

Property, love of, 53. 

Physical culture, 128. 

Progress, 27; of the spirit, 74; path of, 82; geographical condi- 
tions of human, 45; unlimited, 34; changes direction in 
man, 31; physical progress ends with him, 32. 

Punishment, 123. 

Reason as intellectual and moral consciousness, 41. 

Reason and conscience, 67. 



INDEX. 155 

Reform, S5. 

Reiucarnation, 22. 

Religion, meaning of, 63; based on immortality, 20; fa'ls in 
teachingjustice, 63. 

Rent, how much demanded, 4S. 

Revelation, necessity of, 66; does it supply the imperfection of 
conscience? 72. 

Reward, 76. 

Right, whatever is, is, 79. 

Right and wrong, S3. 

Rights, charter of, 89; of society, 114; of the individual, 114. 

Rights of government, 121. 

Rights to mental culture, 90. 

Rights, woman's, 97. 

Rights, summary of, 97. 

Senses of animals, 67. 

Sabbath breaking, 95. 

Sacrifices for sin, 101. 

Sleep, 4S. 

Selfish propensities, 51. 

Self-preservation, 55. 

Self-love, 55. 

Sexual impulse, 49; law of, 50; its end, 49; ignorance in re- 
gard to its laws, 50. 

Sickness a crime, 105. 

Sin, 99; forgiveness of, 100; pardon of, 100; sacrifices for, 101. 

Spirits, 33; origin of, 20; evolutions of, 20; definitions of, 22; 
evidences of, 33; of animals, 36. 

Spiritual culture, 105; body, 35. 

Spiritualism, ix; foundation of, 22; is the science of life, 46; 
discards not the past, 150; it is leaderless, 150; it makes 
man the divine center, 151; is not a system of theology, 151. 

Social problem, American solution of, 114. 

Stoics, 79. 

Suicide, 52. 

The Appetites, 44. 

Thought, region of pure, 68. 

Temperance, 48. 

Theology, its object, vii. 

The Temple should be purified, 150. 

The first condition of spiritual purity, 150. 

Thirst, 45. 

Tolerance, 79. 

Truth, the absolute, 65; love of, 64. 

Utilitarians, 69. 

Virtues exist in two states, 64; unity of the, 67. 

Vogt, C, 33. * 

"What is possible in one age is possible to all, 148. 

We are not living for ourselves alone, 151. 

Wealth, its purpose, 54; where and how right to accumulate, 54. 

Wisdom, 67. 

Will, S4; not a distinct faculty, 85; development of, 86; cul- 
ture of, 88; not free, 88; depravity of, 88. 

With unsandled feet, 149. 

Wrong doing, result of, 79. 

Wrong, what ever is, is,79. 

Xeuophen, 6S. 

Xerxes, 109. 



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